


The Night Terrors: Part the Second - The Harrowing

by Fluterbev



Series: The Night Terrors [2]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Monsters, Partner Betrayal, Sentinel/Guide Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-07
Updated: 2011-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-19 02:44:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 44,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluterbev/pseuds/Fluterbev
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the second part of the tale of The Night Terrors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night Terrors: Part the Second - The Harrowing

**Author's Note:**

> Please see The Night Terrors: Part the First - The Reaping for notes/warnings etc.

Just as James had proclaimed, the turning of the year was a new start for them all.

As if Nature knew they needed respite, the winter snows which set in a few days after the solstice were short-lived, the temperatures mild throughout the rest of the slowly lengthening days. In the town most of the rebuilding had been done, and now rebuilding of a different kind – of lives at long last given hope for the future – commenced in earnest. It really was as though the darkness was behind them for good, replaced by a pervading sense of optimism and moving forward.

The deep link which had formed between James and Blair was strong and unbreakable. Blair often found himself cast up on the shore of the moment, flailing in dazed surprise at his own good fortune. He truly had been given everything he’d ever wanted – a home, a family, and a sentinel who loved him and who he adored in turn. It seemed _almost_ too good to be true – yet at every turn he was faced with the amazing reality of it all.

The business of each day went on much as it had before they had paired. Blair spent most of his time tutoring Grace, while James sat as usual in council in his hall. But at frequent intervals they came together, both to reconnect and for Blair to ensure that James’ senses were functioning at their best. Blair derived great pleasure from seeing both James and Grace blossom under his guidance, their senses honed and optimised by his tutelage and care. For someone who had worked towards being the best guide he could possibly be for most of his life, there was no greater reward.

During the daylight hours and when not otherwise engaged, Blair and James would often walk outside together in the woods and fields, Blair’s natural guide gifts and the fresh air soothing the sentinel’s senses. And there was more time for play now, too, since the crisis was past. Time spent riding and engaging in other leisurely pursuits, as well as James resuming his much-loved daily exercises in the yard with his men.

Despite never having been much of an athlete or a fighter, Blair often found himself drawn into those games too. It was a relief, in any case, after the various incapacities he’d suffered, to be able to stretch his body beyond its normal limits. So Blair spent time learning swordplay from James, as well as Megan’s weaponless southern fighting style. With regard to the latter, he felt intense satisfaction one day when he managed to floor James as they wrestled, to the delighted whoops of Megan and their other observers, although the sentinel had accused him of fighting dirty to do so. “I’m certain,” James said with a grimace as Blair helped him up, “that you did not learn that move from Megan!”

Blair shrugged. “You use what you can. You may have noticed I’m not exactly in your league when it comes to stature. Yet, living in the capital, I had to know how to defend myself effectively.”

“You’re full of surprises,” James said, grinning and pulling him close, pointedly ignoring the suggestive catcalls of the guardsmen ringing the yard as he did so. “And all of them good!”

Their evenings were often spent together with their wider ‘family’ – the newly handfasted Megan and Rafe, as well as Grace, of course, and often Simon. Those times were treasured idylls of peace for all of them.

Upon retiring to the privacy of their chamber each night, Blair and James spent hour after hour engaged in exploration and enjoyment of each other. Blair gradually rediscovered, in James’ gentle, safe hands, the joy of giving and receiving pleasure, unmarred by painful memory. Their lovemaking was breathtakingly tender, infused always with the depth of feeling which could only be known through a deep link.

It was everything Blair had ever wished for and more. A perfect, flawless happy ending.

Yet no matter how much he tried to suppress it, Blair’s contentment was constantly marred by the ominous words of a hedge-guide, and a formless dark shadow far away to the north.

***

Seeing Blair like this always made James feel as powerful as if he were one of the kings of old, master of the entire landscape from horizon to horizon – which at the moment comprised Blair’s heaving chest, squirming body and passion-flushed face. Knowing exactly the right moment to do so, James adjusted his grip and speed, and he watched with immense satisfaction when Blair came apart beneath him. Experiencing Blair’s reaction as if it were his own, thanks to the gift of his heightened senses and their emotional connection, James followed almost immediately after, their combined ecstasy almost robbing him of his wits.

Then in the aftermath, just as had been the case ever since the solstice, James watched with disappointment as the sated contentment on Blair’s face was gradually supplanted by something darker. Blue eyes made drowsy with satisfaction drifted to gaze towards the shuttered window, and shadow marred the edges of their passion-softened ease.

Ever since they’d first consummated their pairing, James had hoped that his gentle loving of Blair would eventually banish the demons of his past. During their coupling itself Blair always seemed every bit as involved as James –the sentinel would have known if it were otherwise, because their empathy for each other was so strong at those intimate times. Attuned to Blair as he was, James took pains not to push him too fast or take him to places he was not yet ready to go and, so far, Blair had expressed nothing but pleasure at their mutual touches. Yet afterwards, instead of basking together in the glow as James always hoped they might, Blair often closed himself off, his attention caught by something apparently altogether more troubling.

James had refrained so far from broaching the topic with his partner, because he respected Blair’s need, as a man, to have privacy to deal with whatever preyed on his mind. They were sentinel and guide, their emotions forever opened to each other. But that did not mean they had a right to every corner of each other’s thoughts all of the time. Their commitment was a precious gift, which must remain unmarred by obligation except where it was freely given. Yet James nevertheless found himself unable, after holding his peace for so long, not to say something. “Blair, I… I’m so sorry you’re still so troubled. If you need to sleep in your own room, I’ll understand. I don’t want you to feel obligated to lie with me.”

James was expecting perhaps acceptance and gratitude for his understanding; not appalled shock. “What?” Blair said, obviously fully back in the moment. “Is that what you think?” Astonishment gave way to misery. “Is this your way of telling me you want to sleep alone?”

“No!” Emphasising his refutation of that suggestion forcefully, James grabbed Blair by both shoulders and leaned over him, making it hard for Blair to look anywhere but at his face. “No, that’s not what I meant, Blair! I love you. I want you in my bed – _our_ bed - more than anything.”

“Then why would you say such a thing?”

It seemed they were going to have this discussion anyway, despite James’ sincere intention to simply give Blair the space he needed. “You’ve been ill-used in the past,” he said, feeling an intense pain in his gut at the memory of what Blair had gone through when he first arrived at the castle. “It’s understandable that what we do in bed reminds you. I just want you to know, we can take this more slowly, if you wish. I’m just saying I _understand_. That’s all.”

Blair blinked. “You’ve got it all wrong,” he said emphatically. “Nothing about you, or the way you touch me, reminds me of what they did. _Nothing_. All right, yes,” he admitted, “there are some things I’m not ready for – I don’t know if I’ll _ever_ be ready. But that is beside the point. I’m not _afraid_ of you, James. I love you, and I love what we do here together.”

The truth of Blair’s assertion was plain to James’ senses. “Then what,” he asked, confused by Blair’s response, “is wrong?”

Blair sighed and shifted, and James pulled away to give him room to sit up. The shadow was back in Blair’s eyes, and James watched as, once again, Blair’s gaze shifted to the shuttered window, before coming back to James’ face. “I can’t explain it,” he said. “I feel… something. Something strange. As though something bad is going to happen. It’s not to do with you and I – it’s something out _there_.”

With a flash of insight – he was from a long line of sentinels and guides, after all – James asked, “Do you have the Sight?”

“My mother used to say I did.” Blair shrugged. “That was a long time ago. It’s not a skill that the Academy approve of or encourage. They see it as a hedge-guide trait, and therefore unworthy of a true Master Guide. We’re taught from an early age to suppress it. Eventually it goes away.”

“And yet,” James pointed out, “you feel something is wrong, nevertheless.” He smiled, trying to reassure. “That sounds like the Sight to me.”

Blair didn’t seem comforted. “If this strange feeling _is_ the Sight, and all it is telling me is that something bad will happen but not what it is, then it is not altogether much use. At least in that respect, the Academy was correct.”

“Can you describe what you see?” James prompted.

“No.” Blair shook his head, struggling with the words. “It’s just… a feeling. Someone – a hedge-guide in the town – described it as a storm. It feels like a black cloud in the north. It could destroy us all, she said.”

James shivered at the prophetic words. If another guide had sensed it too – and James had the utmost respect for hedge-guides as well as for Blair - then there was perhaps cause for concern. “Would you like me to see if I can detect it?” he said. “If you anchor me here, I will send out my senses, and see if there is anything that should not be there.”

“You’d do that?”

Blair’s obvious relief fortified James’ determination to do so. “Of course I will,” he said. He put out a hand and stroked Blair’s cheek. “I want to help you any way I can,” he said. “But also I have faith in your intuition. If you feel there may be a threat, then I must investigate.”

Blair looked a little sheepish. “I should have asked you before,” he said. “I would have done so, except I didn’t want to trouble you with something which might be nothing more than my imagination.”

James leaned forward and kissed Blair softly on the lips. “Even if it is,” he said, gazing at Blair tenderly, “I would do anything for you. You only have to ask.”

Over the next few minutes, Blair led James through a breathing exercise to ready him for what he was about to do. Then, secure in the knowledge that his guide was there to tether and protect him, James allowed his senses to fly out into the darkness.

Far he flew; through darkness and over trickling streams, his nostrils filled with the scent of bog and the damp promise of rain. The air was colder the higher he travelled, snow tickling his nose with its ice crystals when he turned his attention to the peaks. Night creatures scurried and flew in the wild places; great owls soaring over scrabbling prey far below in the heather. Still James’ senses travelled, further and further, following the north star like a lodestone.

At last, reaching the limits of his awareness, he listened; seeking that which should not be there. But he heard nothing, smelled nothing, sensed _nothing_.

And he realised, to his dismay, that the answer was deep within the nothingness itself.

Relaxing all control James allowed his guide to reel him back in, arriving back into his body and their bedchamber with a rush, to find Blair looking at him, his expression a mixture of dread and hope.

At the question in his eyes, James said hoarsely, “It’s there. The dark cloud.” He shivered, feeling again the sense of barrenness and threat. “Its breath is like a warm wind in the far north. It is surrounded by emptiness – there is not one single living creature within leagues of where it lies.”

James heard Blair’s heart jump and speed up but, guide-like, he maintained his composure. “What is it?” he asked.

James shook his head. “I don’t know for certain,” he admitted, intense despair filling him. “But I think I can guess.”

Blair’s voice broke. “I thought they’d gone,” he said, “like the fae did in the old tales. Back to their home far away, never to return.”

“I think they’re just biding their time,” James admitted, his self-recrimination almost too much to bear. How could he have been so wrong? “Sleeping, like rodents in the winter. I’m sorry, Blair.”

Wordlessly, Blair gathered him in. And, tense and fitful, they clung together throughout the rest of the night, their intermittent dreams filled with the flap of wings and scrabble of claws.

***

James agonised for most of that long, interminable night how best to deal with the threat. Clearly word would have to be spread throughout the other baronies. Precautions would need to be taken to protect people from the night terrors, in readiness for the time they might fly south once more. Better and more effective ways of keeping the creatures out would need to be devised, and houses suitably reinforced. And he would need to ensure that people were armed and ready to fight.

Rising in the clear light of morning to air filled with the promise of spring, and the hopeful faces of a populace who had lived through a nightmare they now thought gone forever, he found himself paralysed into inaction. How could he tell them that their new-found optimism and hope for the future was based on a false premise?

Yet, of course, he must. He was baron – it was his duty.

But as the morning advanced, with Blair constantly hovering equally devastated and white-faced at his elbow, James began to see another solution.

The creatures, if he’d sensed it right, were sleeping. Whiling away the winter months in hibernation, just like any common creature.

Maybe it was time to turn the tables, and show them what it was like to be slaughtered while lying vulnerable and unaware – just as they had done to so many of James’ people, who they’d mercilessly devoured in their beds.

Finally, knowing what he must do, James called a meeting with Simon to tell him what he’d discovered, and to plan their next move.

***

Even as James set the wheels in motion to deal with the night terrors once and for all, Blair was plagued by a constant, nagging sense of doubt. Something about this whole scenario did not add up, his odd prescience notwithstanding. Why, when they had never done so in living memory, had the creatures gone to ground this winter? What was different about _this_ year than any other? Previously the night terrors had revelled in the longer hours of darkness which came about at this time of year, and the cold had not seemed to affect them at all.

While the seneschal and the baron sequestered themselves in the baron’s private apartment to take counsel, Blair found himself in Simon’s library, seeking in the ancient books he kept there the tales they had all grown up hearing – that the night terrors, just like the fae of ancient times, would one day flee north, and go from the land forever back to the magical place from whence they came. Poring over huge, dusty volumes, he found several allusions to the mythical tales, none of which helped at all.

Frustrated, Blair closed the latest book he’d been perusing with an irritated sigh. They’d all been so certain that the night terrors were gone. The old legends of the fae and the very real night terrors had become so entwined in their collective consciousness that, when the beasts had left, everyone had remembered the old stories and assumed the night terrors had gone the way of the fae. Yet it seemed they were merely beasts after all, and not at all magical like the faery creatures of old – they merely slept like any other animal, conserving their energy and warmth through the winter, biding their time before they came back to attack again.

Yet the two scenarios – the fae of legend and the night terrors – shared enough common characteristics that doubt remained. So much so that, when James emerged grim-faced from his meeting with Simon, Blair begged him not to act on their discovery just yet. “People will panic,” he pointed out, “and we can’t be certain that the night terrors will definitely return. Perhaps they are just biding their time before they continue their journey homeward.”

“Blair,” James protested wearily, “we have to act _now_. I can’t take the chance that they will wake and come back to kill us all. If they are insensible, I can take an army north to slaughter them while they still sleep. We can’t afford to miss this opportunity.”

Feeling deep unease, yet understanding nevertheless that James had a duty to act, Blair decided to ask for a little more time. “Give me a little longer, James. Please. Just one day to look into this further. You said it yourself,” he pointed out. “You have great respect for the teachings of your ancestors. I am certain that the old legends of the fae can tell us something – I just need time to find the right information. And James,” he said pleadingly, “what if you’re wrong? What if they’re not sleeping? How can you be sure that you’d not simply be leading your army to their deaths?”

James’ face was hard. “A soldier can never be certain of such things,” he said. “I am no stranger to making tough decisions, and taking responsibility for my actions.”

Another might have quailed at James’ icy demeanour, but not Blair – he knew his sentinel well enough to perceive the fear and doubt under the surface. “One day, James,” he reiterated softly. “That’s all I ask.”

James didn’t answer but, after a moment, nodded stiffly before turning away.

After he’d gone, Blair got dressed for the outdoors and headed out towards the town. The books had told him nothing he didn’t already know. It was time to get information from a different – and altogether more unsettling - source.

***

It wasn’t hard to locate the home of the old woman - the very first person Blair stopped to ask apparently knew the hedge-guide well. “You mean old Rowena? You’ll find her three streets down and to the left. Her house is at the far end of the row. You can’t miss it.”

“Thank you,” Blair said politely and, following the directions, shortly found himself standing before a red-painted door. Inside a commotion of children’s voices could be heard, and Blair remembered that, when the old woman had been among those seeking shelter at the castle, she’d been surrounded by children. At the time he’d been so unnerved by her – as well as disoriented by the onset of fever – that he’d not paid the company she was with any more heed than that.

Above the door a faded sign could be seen: _Madam Rowena_ , it proclaimed. And another sign beside the door indicated what manner of business could be found within:

_Apothecary_

_Midwife_

_Fortunes Told_

_Love Potions_

_Charms_

_&_ _c_.

Shaking his head disapprovingly – such superstitious practices were abhorred by the Academy – Blair lifted his hand to knock.

Abruptly, even before his hand made contact, the door opened; and Blair stepped back as several small boys ran out and pushed past him. “Hey there, mind your manners!” A woman’s voice called after them; and, in the next moment, she appeared at the door. It wasn’t the hedge-guide, but rather a much younger version of her – the same long-lashed deep-brown eyes, and wispy curls escaping the knot at the back of her head, although her hair was chestnut while the old lady’s had been mostly white.

The woman did not seem surprised to see Blair there. “Lord Blair,” she greeted, and Blair blinked at the unaccustomed honorific. “Mam said you’d come.” When he made no answer, stunned to silence, she took his arm and steered him inside. “Well, come in!” she urged. “You’re very welcome. Though I imagine you’re used to finer accommodations than our humble house.”

There had been an edge of humour in the woman’s voice, and something told Blair that her self-effacing remark was more reflective of her dry wit than an indication of the plainness of her abode. And indeed, although this woman was clearly not wealthy, her house was warm and homely, furnished tastefully and clean and neat.

Once inside the lady steered Blair into her kitchen. The hedge-guide he’d come to see was sitting at the kitchen table, a pile of winter greens spread over the surface in front of her as she wielded a knife to prepare them for the pot.

Madam Rowena looked up as they entered, and fixed a measuring stare on Blair. “I thought you’d come sooner,” she greeted bluntly, expressing no surprise as Blair, urged by her daughter do so, took a seat at the table. “Worked it out, have you?”

Blair had a feeling that courtly manners would be lost on this woman. “The night terrors haven’t gone,” he said, answering bluntness with bluntness. “Though if you’d told me that when we met on the road at solstice, instead of giving me vague hints, perhaps it would have given us more time to deal with them. Winter,” he pointed out, a little testily, “is almost over.”

“They won’t be back, child,” Rowena said, ignoring his rebuke. “Leastways not soon.” She shifted her attention to her daughter. “Some tea for our guest, eh, Gwen?”

“The kettle’s already on, Mam,” Gwen replied, her back to the room as she gathered cups from the dresser.

That business dealt with, Rowena fixed her direct gaze back on Blair. “Most of the time with the Sight, vague hints is all you get, especially when what you see is something far in the future. But having had that beaten out of you at the Academy, I’m not surprised you don’t know it.”

Blair bristled at her tone. “No one ‘beat’ me at the Academy,” he asserted. “They treated me with nothing but kindness.”

“They took you from your family and forced you to subdue your natural gifts, boy,” Rowena said belligerently. “Which is as good as having it beat out of you. I should know; they did it to me, too.”

Blair’s antagonism towards this strange woman withered in the face of his surprise. “You trained at the Academy?”

“Don’t sound so shocked,” Rowena said. “Many of us who have the gifts went there for training – whether we wanted to or not. Not all of us got as far as you, that’s all. When it was clear that I’d never be the ‘Master’ they wanted me to be, they washed their hands of me. Just as they did with you.”

“And you know that about me, how?” Blair demanded. “Because of the Sight?”

Rowena threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, that’s a good one,” she chuckled. “No, young man. I know that because you are the baron’s guide, and very little that goes on up at the big house is a secret. Gossip is rife in places like this; though, being raised as a city boy, I guess you didn’t realise it. Half the women in town pine after the romantic hero they believe you to be, and the rest want to comfort you at their motherly breasts.”

A little discomforted by the picture Rowena was painting, Blair nevertheless asked, “And how do _you_ see me?”

“You’re a fool,” Rowena said bluntly. “You think your Academy training is all you need to be a guide. You have no idea, child.”

Stung by yet another hit at his professional ability, and from a charlatan, no less, Blair stood, fully intending to leave. He’d thought this woman could give him answers, but clearly he’d been mistaken.

Before he could take one step towards the door, however, Gwen appeared at his side. “Mam, don’t be so rude!” she chided the old woman. Then to Blair, she added, “She does this all the time. She thinks being an obnoxious old sow will make people respect her. It’s all an act, my lord, which she uses to impress her clients. Pay her no heed. And as for you,” she looked back at her mother, “this is the baron’s guide, not some poor lovestruck fool come in off the street to hear you tell their fortune. Stop it!”

Blair looked back at Rowena, who was glaring at her daughter. “I know,” she said icily, “exactly who it is.” Then she fixed her attention back on Blair. “Sit down, lad. You’ve dealt with worse than me in your time.”

More than a little discomforted, Blair did as she asked, but he watched the hedge-guide warily as he did so. They sat in silence, Rowena’s attention back on the vegetables she was preparing until Gwen placed steaming cups of tea before them all on the table, and took a seat beside Blair. “So,” the younger woman asked. “What brings you to our house, my lord?”

Feeling uncomfortably out of his depth in the lair of these women, Blair pointed out, “I am not noble born, Madam, so there’s no need to address me as ‘my lord’. My name is Blair.”

Across the table Rowena snorted.

“And I am no lady,” Gwen said, casting a disapproving glance at her mother. “So addressing me as ‘Madam’ is unnecessary – it’s Mam who likes such fripperies. Just call me Gwen,” she said. She raised an eyebrow. “Well, Blair? Why have you come to see us?”

“He came to see me, girl. Don’t flatter yourself,” Rowena put in. “Blair and I have had words before. He’s here now because it seems he’s finally learned to use the gifts he was born with.”

Deciding a direct approach would be the only way he’d get anywhere with Rowena, Blair pointed out, “When we met before, you seemed to take delight in being mysterious. Was that part of your act, too?”

“I meant every word I said to you,” Rowena said, her task cast aside and her disturbingly direct stare once again full on Blair’s face. “Every bit of it was the truth.”

“You said there was a storm coming, but you never told me it was the night terrors. Why be so vague, when it is such a serious matter?”

She shrugged, seemingly unconcerned by the criticism. “I didn’t know that it was the night terrors then. I only know it _now_ because you’ve just told me.”

Blair frowned. “Then what _do_ you know?” he asked. “It could kill us all, you said. What did you mean by that?”

“What did you feel, when I pointed you in the right direction?” Rowena countered.

Blair cast his mind back, and shuddered. “A sense of threat far away. Something huge and dangerous.” He swallowed, analysing more of the strange feeling. “It has its sights set on us,” he said, knowing it to be true.

“How do you know it is the night terrors?” the old woman prompted. “Have you seen them? I don’t mean with your eyes, now. I mean with your gift.”

Blair shook his head. “My sentinel cast his senses out - it was he who determined what it is. They’re sleeping, he believes. Biding their time for the winter, until they’re ready to return.”

“And what,” she asked, “do you feel now?” She softened her voice, her tone hypnotic. “Forget what your sentinel told you. Forget your fears and your dread, and the way you’ve been taught. Look for the storm on the horizon, and tell me what you see.”

Blair did as she asked, closing his eyes and, instead, turning his thoughts inward to open that strange _inner_ eye, dormant since childhood and which he’d only recently become aware that he was still able to use. He turned his gaze toward the north, focusing on the dark cloud at the edge of his vision.

Something had changed.

“Tell me what you see.” Rowena’s voice brought Blair abruptly back.

He frowned. “The cloud has diminished. It is as if holes have been worn through it, somehow.” He opened his eyes and looked across at the old woman. “It’s dying,” he said with certainty.

“And the threat?” she prompted.

Blair struggled to make sense of what were, at best, amorphous feelings. “Still there. But… different.” He shook his head. “Yesterday I could clearly sense it – it’s been like that ever since solstice.  But now… something still feels wrong to me. Dangerous. It is as if it is there, but invisible.”

“I see the same thing,” Rowena told him. “I thought the dark cloud – the night terrors - _was_ the threat. But now I think it is something else entirely. Something my Sight cannot perceive.”

Deeply disturbed, Blair asked, “What is it?”

“I have no idea.” She shrugged, and went back to her vegetables. “Whatever it is,” she said, “it is a long way off. When those of us with the Sight are granted visions yet they remain unclear, as this one does, it is usually an indication of events to come in the far future. If the gods of our ancestors wish it, more will be revealed when the time is closer. In the meantime, it’s done us a service. The creatures – if your sentinel is right and the dark cloud is, indeed, them – are dying. It’s over.”

“Are you saying there is no current threat from the night terrors?” Blair asked.

“How you interpret what you see is up to you,” she said. Outer leaves were discarded, inner ones chopped and added to the pot. “There is, however, one thing I can see which you cannot.” She dropped her knife on the table, and turned toward Blair. Taking his hand in her gnarled one, she looked deep into his eyes, and he resisted a sudden urge to flee. It felt as if she was looking deep inside, finding places even his sentinel could not touch.

Holding Blair motionless with the force of her gaze and the claw-like grasp of her hand, Rowena told him, “I saw, long ago, that you and our baron would be paired. I saw the darkness in your past which you were afraid to face. Now, I tell you this. Stay loyal to him, whatever happens. Trust yourself and be strong. And when your eyes are the only ones open to the truth, use every resource at your command to open the eyes of others - because the lives of our children and our children’s children depend on it.”

“What do you mean?” Blair whispered.

Rowena turned away once more and, released, Blair snatched his hand back and cradled it to his chest. “If I knew any more I’d tell you, child,” she said a little testily. Clearly dismissing him, she went back to her task.

As if nothing of any significance had happened, Gwen pushed his cup nearer. “Don’t let your tea get cold, Blair,” she said. “Would you like some cake?”

Stunned, Blair accepted her hospitality by rote, his thoughts emphatically elsewhere.

***

Back at the castle, Blair headed once again for the library. Simon was there when he arrived. “Feel free to look around,” he told Blair, a quill in his hand and a frown on his brow. “But I’d appreciate it if you did so quietly. I need to finish writing out these messages to the other baronies so they can be sent at first light.”

Taking pains not to disturb the busy seneschal, Blair one again attacked the books. He needed to know what was strong enough to slaughter night terrors as they slept. Another, more fearsome creature, perhaps? Disease? Perhaps some unknown tribe of humans, who lived in the cold, far north? And more to the point – having killed the night terrors, was this same, mysterious thing the threat to _them_ that Blair, deep in his heart, feared?

But the books, once again, did not help, despite the fact that the library James’ seneschal maintained was one of the most extensive and comprehensive that Blair had ever seen. Little had ever been documented about the night terrors, it seemed, despite the fact that the two species – humans and monsters – had lived side-by-side for generations. And muddying the whole issue was the tendency of histories and legends to conflate the night terrors with the fae; those ethereal, delicate creatures who their ancestors had believed to be visitors from a magical twilight world, the entrance to which was hidden deep in the ancient barrows and stone circles scattered all over the baronies.

It made no sense to Blair that the two were so confused. They were nothing alike – the night terrors were fearsome, man-sized beasts of terrifying aspect, while the fae were portrayed as beautiful, tiny beings, conveying good luck on all who showed them respect. And in the end, absent any kind of insight from the books he perused, Blair ceased his research with a frustrated sigh, and went to tell James what had transpired.

***

The news that Blair delivered to James – that in all likelihood the night terrors were no longer a threat - did not affect what he must do. While he had the greatest respect for those who possessed the Sight in general, as well as his own guide in particular, James could not afford to take chances with the lives of his people. Not after they’d all suffered so much already.

It didn’t help that Blair himself did not trust either his own visions or those of the old hedge-guide he’d gone to see. “This is why,” he told James, “the Academy discourages use of and belief in the Sight. It is an imperfect and unpredictable source of information – nothing like a Sentinel’s abilities at all. It just gets in the way of clarity. I can tell you nothing, except that I feel that the creatures are dying. Yet I know not why or how, or even if the thing killing them will likewise be a danger to us. Part of me feels that it will – yet Madam Rowena seems to believe that the danger is far in our future, and not current at all.”

James was far more inclined to believe what Blair had told him – that something unnamed was already in the process of decimating the sleeping night terrors – than Blair was himself. Nevertheless, he could not rely on that faith, and he knew that Blair did not expect that of him either. Whatever was happening, he needed to witness it for himself up close, rather than through the long-distance perception his senses lent him.

First thing the next morning, after yet another night of fretful sleep for him and his guide, James took decisive action. Couriers were sent out at dawn carrying the missives that Simon had written, to urge the citizens of the other baronies to take steps to protect themselves. Shortly afterwards the castle was roused, and James rode down into the town, with the majority of his household and men-at-arms following close on his heels. Down in the town, criers were sent out ahead to proclaim his coming.

Once all were assembled, James stood high on a makeshift podium in the public square and addressed the people. “The night terrors have gone to ground,” he said, his voice carrying strongly over the shuffling of feet and the hastily-silenced cries of children. “They are sleeping, and we must ensure they never wake to come back and do us harm. What happened last summer must never be permitted to happen again.”

Blair watched with a heavy heart, as the hopeful faces of the crowd, so recently having rediscovered safety in the darkness and the joy of survival, turned to shock and dismay at the baron’s words. And then he watched as James, having delivered the blow, followed up with stirring words of conquest and hope. A true leader of men, Blair’s sentinel. “Who is with me?” James asked at last, his face lit with the fervour of battle.

The cheers of the crowd were deafening, even to Blair’s non-sentinel ears.

***

The rest of the day was spent in preparation. James intended to leave at dawn the next day with his hastily assembled army. Weapons which had been forged in the summer - now hanging over fireplaces, destined to become heirlooms in memory of that time - were taken down and made ready once again. Those who would remain behind – mothers and children, the old and infirm - made their way up to the castle to take refuge there for the duration, in case the army failed and the night terrors were wakened prematurely, hungry after their long sleep. A handful of armed men would remain there to protect them.

Blair wondered aloud, as the day moved on into darkness and the castle smithy worked noisily on, why James wouldn’t wait for men from the other baronies to join him in the fight. “With greater numbers, surely there would be a greater chance of success?”

“We’ve already waited too long,” James told him. “I can’t risk even one more day – the creatures could wake at any time. We have to hit them _now_.”

And James had a further blow to deliver. “Blair, I need you to stay behind.”

“No!” Blair could not believe what he was hearing. “You can’t ask that of me.  How can you say that?”

But James was implacable. “I need you here, Blair. If we fail-“

“No!” Blair turned his back, even the suggestion of James not coming back filling him with terror. “I won’t hear this. Don’t do this to me.” He swung around and channelled it into anger. “I’m coming with you, James. I’m your guide. You need me at your side.”

“I need you to stay with Grace.” The words, delivered in such a quiet, measured voice, punctured Blair’s arguments immediately, his breath escaping in a rush. James pushed on into the agonising emptiness that followed. “Before we leave, I plan to publicly acknowledge Grace as my heir and, in the event of my death, assign you as warden of the barony until she comes of age. If I don’t return she will need you to guide her to mastery of her senses, and help her grow into wisdom. There is only one man I trust with such a grave responsibility, Blair. And that man is you.”

“What about Simon?” The words were empty ones, Blair knew – Simon was not a guide, and so unable to take on that aspect of Blair’s responsibilities, yet Blair was not going to accept this without a fight. “He knows this barony better than anyone. He’d make a far more suitable warden than I ever could.”

“Simon will travel with me,” James said. “He and I fought together for several years on the border. He is a fine soldier, and I will need him at my back. Joel will act as Seneschal in his stead.”

Blair’s dismay lay heavy, like a stone in his gut. “You’ve got to come back,” he said, hating how his need made him sound as petulant as a child. “I can’t…” he took a breath, steadying his voice by effort of will, visualising his greatest fear – that his sentinel might never return, killed far away from the protection and succour of his guide, and that Blair himself would live on alone, deprived of the man he loved more than his own life. “I don’t want to do this without you,” Blair concluded, uncertain at this moment which of them he was more afraid for.

James smiled sadly, acknowledging with gentle eyes the words unspoken. “Then let us hope your vision and that of the hedge-guide was right. That the night terrors are already dead, and we will all return unscathed.”

“James-” Blair began, but ran out of words. The baron, it seemed, had this all worked out. Closing his eyes, his hands clenched into fists, Blair was paralysed by the pain and terror which consumed him.

Arms came around him and held on. And as he was crushed against his sentinel’s hard chest, Blair could feel that James’ grief at their parting matched his own.

***

Blair found, to his surprise, that he didn’t have much time to brood after James led his makeshift army up into the mountains. Being thrust into the position of de-facto warden of the barony, at a time when the castle was full each night of frightened people hiding from the possible return of the night terrors, kept him fully occupied right round the clock.

He was also not the only person desperately worried about a loved one who had gone into danger, and the need to give comfort to those souls similarly afflicted helped to keep his mind off his own problems. One such was Megan, whose beloved Rafe had accompanied the baron on the trip north. At least half of her frustration was rooted in being unable to fight by his side – it chafed her greatly to remain behind, skilled as she was in such matters. But even she recognised the fact that her daughter needed her here.

Blair found himself spending hours in the hall each night, soothing as many of those in similar straits as he could with his presence and encouraging words. Even worse was that many of those who sought shelter in the hall each night were already recently bereaved, so many of their family and friends having been taken during the desperate days of summer. There was an all-pervading sense of grief and dread in the castle and its locality, despite the fact that, night after night, the night terrors still failed to come.

It was only late at night, when the hall was quiet and Blair lay awake in the bed he and James usually shared, that the magnitude of his fear for his sentinel came to the fore. At those times Blair tried desperately to utilise his inner vision, in an effort to find out how James and the others fared. But it was all in vain – try as he might, he could sense _nothing_. Once again, he cursed the gift of Sight with all his might. What use to anyone could something so uncontrollable be, especially at critical times like this? The Academy had been entirely correct, he now believed, in teaching him to suppress it.

During each day Blair did his best to fill the shoes that James left behind, although he worried that, in comparison with the worldly-wise baron, he was a pretty poor substitute. He’d spent many months observing how James conducted himself during his daily court, and had engaged in much discussion with James about the way he deliberated the cases which came before him. So now Blair tried his hardest to emulate the baron’s approach, hearing each case without prejudice. And with reference to legal precedent, thanks to Joel’s presence, he did his best to deal fairly with all comers.

To Blair’s relief, most matters were less weighty than some of the daily issues the baron dealt with, so many of the townsfolk who might otherwise have added to his load having accompanied James on his quest to slaughter the night terrors. For the most part, Blair found himself dealing with people simply needing reassurance at the turn of events, as well as various matters of petty larceny and dispute, most of which were easily enough dealt with by reference to Joel’s knowledge of the law. Blair dreaded the day, however, that someone might commit rape or murder and come before him – those crimes were capital offences in the barony, and Blair hated to think that he might be called upon to enforce such a sentence. If he was not already having trouble sleeping at night, his worry about that issue would have caused him no end of nightmares.

Despite his already heavy load Blair took time out each day to spend with Grace, taking his responsibility to mentor the little sentinel and fledgling baroness very seriously indeed. It seemed the change in her status as the baron’s new heir had had little effect on her demeanour, as she remained the precocious, affectionate child she’d always been, soaking up knowledge like a sponge. The hours Blair spent with her were the single bright spot in each long, arduous day.

Days passed, then a week. The trek into the mountains was likely to be a hard one, and none of them knew how far James’ expedition would have to travel before they found the lair of the night terrors, therefore Blair had no idea how soon it might be before the army would return. Assuming, that was, they _did_ return. And contemplating the possibility that James might suffer and die far away, and that Blair might never see him again, was something which filled Blair with constant, mind-numbing terror.

But dwelling on his ever present fear and need for James did not get the job done. Consequently Blair’s full attention was on the dispute he was adjudicating on the morning, almost three weeks later, when James and the army finally returned.

***

James could hear Blair’s voice even before the castle came in sight - his senses had automatically roamed out when they’d reached the fork in the road, unerringly seeking his guide.

Upon reaching that familiar landmark, most of their number had taken the path to the right which led to the town, while James and the rest carried on up to the castle. Understanding that his lord’s senses were firmly riveted on their destination, Simon moved in close and took James’ arm to guide his steps, leaving James free to listen to what was happening in the hall without fear of tripping over his own feet.

Blair, so it seemed, was about to pronounce judgement on the matter before him. His voice was measured and calm to James’ ears. _“Hedger, you will pay your neighbour six silver pieces, to compensate him for the damage you caused.”_

 _“That’s not good enough!”_ James recognised the angry voice of Jack the Carter, who had been engaged in a long running boundary dispute with his neighbour, Hedger Willow, for the past several years. The two of them had come up before James many times before, and it seemed that no end to their enmity was in sight. _“I want him whipped as well,”_ Jack was insisting. _“What he did ain’t right!”_

 _“I have not finished!”_ Blair cut in, the unaccustomed steel in his voice startling James, as well (no doubt) as his audience. _“Jack the Carter, the damage which Hedger did to your fence – which he will be obliged to pay for – was in retaliation for your own previous act of vandalism. Therefore you will likewise pay him in recompense for that. The amount is six silver pieces.”_

_“What? You can’t do that-”_

_“That’s ludicrous!”_

Blair overrode the voices decisively. _“Be silent!”_

Impressed, James found himself riveted to the drama, even as their progress led them closer to their destination.

Now he had their attention, Blair’s voice was quieter but, tuned into it as he was, James had no problem hearing what he said. _“This is what, about the tenth time in a year that you two have come to this hall for adjudication? And every time, it has been in relation to petty, ridiculous things like this. So many people have died; so many have been left alone. Yet you continue to squabble about just ten feet of land which divides your property. You should be ashamed of yourselves!”_

Blair was correct, of course; and consumed by the crisis of the past year, James had tended to quickly dismiss each man’s complaint against the other with a fine and an admonishment to sort out their problems, before he’d moved onto far more serious and pressing issues. But Blair, it seemed, was determined to deal with this once and for all. James found himself holding his breath, intrigued as to how Blair would handle the matter.

 _“As of now,”_ Blair said firmly, _“the disputed strip of land is forfeit.”_

The outcries of the two men which inevitably resulted were silenced once again by Blair’s voice – the tone of command in it unmistakeable. _“If you cannot control yourselves, then you will ejected from the hall! The verdict will **not** be changed.”_

Once peace had resumed, Blair delivered the rest of his decision. _“Hedger, under supervision of an appointed bailiff of this court, and at your own expense, you will erect a fence where directed on the boundary of your land. Jack the Carter, you will do the same on **your** side. The strip which runs down the middle will henceforth come within the purview of the baron and his agents. As a penalty for wasting the time of this court, you will both be obliged to devote a total of one hundred hours each to till the confiscated land and plant seed vegetables there, to tend them while they grow, and to harvest them and deliver them to the houses of families left bereaved by the night terrors.”_

The stunned silence which followed was broken, for James, by the rising excitement of the men who accompanied him as they entered the castle gates. His concentration on the events taking place in his hall was broken as he turned to smile at Simon, striding dusty and tired beside him.

They were _home_.

***

Back in the hall, Blair’s pronouncement had caused chaos. “This is an outrage!” Jack the Carter was insisting. “That land belongs to my family!”

Beside him, Hedger was equally incensed. “His father stole that land from my father! And now you want us to give it to the _baron_?”

“He thinks he _is_ the baron,” Jack said aside to Hedger; his enmity towards the other man momentarily forgotten in the face of this new, common enemy. “But the _real_ baron,” he sneered at Blair, “would never dare commit such a ridiculous act!”

“The real baron,” came a voice from the doorway at the far end of the hall, “would never have been so clever or imaginative. Or so eminently fair.”

Blair’s heart leapt wildly, his eyes seeking and finding James as he stepped - bearded, dusty and smiling widely - into the hall.

James moved through the hall towards where Blair sat, cutting a swathe through the assembled crowd like wind through the barley. All eyes were upon him as he moved, and Blair could see nothing else. He ached with love and relief: here was his beloved, longed-for sentinel, home at last, safe and sound.

When he reached Blair’s side, James’ eyes twinkled with a mixture of understanding and amusement as he addressed Blair loud enough for everyone to hear. “You made a very fair decision in this case, Lord Warden. I see that I left the barony in good hands.” James’ hand descended on Blair’s shoulder, the touch quickening Blair’s breath with almost unbounded joy.

Then the baron turned to address the hall, his hand remaining in contact with his guide the whole while. “The night terrors,” he proclaimed loudly, “are dead. Every last one of them. We found the bodies of hundreds upon thousands of them, lying in a huge cavern more than a week’s hard journey from here, up in the high peaks. They were already dead when we arrived, their bodies half-eaten by scavengers. We stayed to set fire to the cave, and we burned what was left of them to ashes.” He grinned, the smile wide and happy. “It is truly over,” he declared. “They are gone forever, and every one of us is back safe.”

The hall erupted into cheers. And in the midst of celebration the eyes of sentinel and guide met, the gaze lingering and eloquent and full of long-denied promise.

***

“I knew,” James told Blair, later that night as they lay entwined in each others’ arms, “that you would be more than capable of administrating the barony in my absence. And then, when I heard you at work, you handled it so well. I’m so proud of you, Blair.”

Blair chuckled, his hair tickling James’ nose as he shifted in the bed. “I doubt that Jack and Hedger would agree.”

“Well,” James said, brushing the offending strands away and smoothing his hand across Blair’s skull tenderly before laying a kiss there. “They don’t have much of a choice. And it was amusing to see them both talking together afterwards, discussing how they planned to make an appeal to me when next I sit in council. You managed to achieve what I never could – unite them against a common cause. Not,” he added, “that it’s going to do them any good. I think your solution is a masterful one, and I fully intend to uphold it.”

Blair shrugged against James’ chest. “It annoyed me that they were being so petty at a time like this, like children fighting over a toy while the house burned down about their ears. I thought if they put the land and their time to good use, doing something positive for those who have been worst affected by the night terrors, that it might illustrate to them that the world does not start and end with their self-centredness.”

Feeling a rush of intense tenderness towards his clever, courageous guide, James tilted Blair’s head up with a finger under his chin. The room was dark so Blair couldn’t see _him_ , but James could see just fine, his senses operating effortlessly due to his guide’s proximity. Blair’s beautiful blue eyes looked back at him, searching in vein for something to latch onto in the darkness. In answer, James touched his lips to Blair’s softly, then with more heat as the other man’s body surged towards him.

They took their time, having engaged already in frantic, hasty loving a little while ago. Hands and mouths touched, tasted and explored, and a fire built deep within James as Blair sweated and panted and strained to be closer and closer still.

They found a rhythm somehow, their bodies pressed tightly together, slipping and sliding against each other. It was maddening yet perfect, James wanting more and still more as he grasped on to Blair’s beautiful body and tried to become one with him. He ached to sink deep within Blair’s secret place or have Blair do that to him, but he knew his partner did not want that; not yet. So instead he endured this exquisite torture, his senses consumed with Blair’s need and want and desire, and the way that it only served to enhance his own.

Attuned to each other as they were, their mutual passion reached its peak at the same instant, the ecstatic release like nothing James had ever felt before. And in the peace that ensued afterwards he held Blair tight against him; never, ever wanting to let him go so long as he lived.

***

The next morning, as they dressed in their chamber in readiness for the day ahead, Blair learned a little more from James about what he’d encountered on the expedition through the mountains.

“There is considerable irony,” James told him, “in the fact that the night terrors were devoured as they slept. I could see the marks of sharp little teeth on their bodies – some of them were gnawed right down to the bone.”

Blair found it hard to envisage. “There were thousands of them, you said. And they were not small creatures. What could possibly have been voracious enough to consume every single one of them?”

James shrugged. “I suspect rodents, seeking to gorge themselves before their winter sleep. Perhaps bats as well – I could hear the flutter of tiny wings far back in the darker recesses of the cave – a huge swarm of them took flight, in fact, when we lit it on fire.”

“Still,” Blair said, incredulous at the scale of the thing. “Thousands of night terrors, and all of them eaten? I’d imagine that to be true of one or two dozen, if it were rats, bats or anything else. But _all_ of them?” He shook his head in wonder. “I would not like to come across a colony of rats large enough to do that. And as for bats…” he shuddered. “Some people say they suck your blood while you sleep. They mostly live now in the southern continent, but I’ve heard that they were also found here in the Five Baronies before the night terrors came, roosting in the eaves of houses. It sounds like they managed to survive in the far north, in the shelter of the caves you found.”

“They were tiny, from what I could make out,” James said. “Without you there, I didn’t want to overextend my senses to take a good look at them. But they seemed harmless enough, and certainly too shy to come anywhere near us, even though they were great in number.”

Blair shuddered again. “I hope they don’t find their way back here, now the night terrors are gone. Ugh!”

James laughed, his arms reaching out to enclose Blair within their circle, before proceeding to tickle him unmercifully. “Bats, rats or night terrors – together we can defeat any foe, my little protector.”

Blair made an initial pretence of submission, then showed James exactly how well he’d learned Megan’s technique for toppling a larger opponent. “Well, my ‘little’ sentinel, he said, standing over James where he lay, dumbfounded, on the floor. “I think perhaps you may be right.”

On the ground at Blair’s feet James just groaned with embarrassment, supremely glad that on this occasion he had been bested in the privacy of their chamber, and not out in the training yard.

***

Renewed optimism swept across the land, now that they could all be sure that the night terrors had gone for good. Messengers were once again sent out to the other baronies, this time to spread the good news. And once again the dark hours were reclaimed by revellers of all ages.

In the castle life resumed its normal cadence, everyone falling back into their established duties and occupations with ease. Winter turned into spring, lambing season was fruitful and the barony appeared to be thriving.

One change that took place was that, in addition to his tutoring duties, Blair often sat with James in council, occasionally even presiding over cases by himself while the baron stepped aside to deal with other matters. He’d gained valuable experience during the three weeks he’d deputised for James, and the baron wished him to continue to do so. “You have the skill and the wisdom for it,” he’d said to Blair. “I trust your judgement, and it is my wish that, as my guide and consort, you act as my partner in such matters.”

James’ praise meant the world to Blair. Finally he was able to put the blows he’d suffered behind him and revel in his new-found confidence, secure in the belief that he had, by his own merits, earned his place at James’ side.

Only one thing marred Blair’s peace. He continued to feel a nagging, unspecific sense of threat, which had a tendency to ambush him at quiet moments. It was as if a clamouring inner voice rose up whenever Blair was alone, to cry, _Danger! Danger!_ Yet no matter how much Blair tried to pin down the source of his unease, he could never get so much as a glimpse of its cause.

So he worked hard to suppress it, denying the existence of his own gift as vehemently as he encouraged James and Grace to develop and hone theirs. The Sight, he told himself firmly, was a misnomer, for he Saw nothing with any clarity at all. In comparison, the vision of sentinels was far-reaching and pure as crystal. The one gift was imperfect, misleading and worthless. The other was flawless, miraculous and priceless. Why struggle to peer through fog, when he could help the two sentinels in his care to reach the clear air above it?

It was perhaps the vehemence of Blair’s denial which helped to blind him to what was going on right in front of his face, until it was too late.

***

The summer solstice celebration had been planned for weeks. Feasting and revelry would go on right through the night, out in the open under the stars. Whole hogs and lambs would be roasted on the spits which had been set up in the great meadow behind the castle, and huge outdoor ovens would churn out a never-ending supply of bread and pastries. Ale had been ferried in by the cartload, and musicians, jugglers, acrobats and mummers were already preparing to give the performance of their lives in the various marquees which had been erected on the field.

Blair could certainly appreciate the symbolism. Reclaiming the night and embracing the coming darker days of winter without fear was a tremendously empowering act for them all.

It was odd, Blair mused, as he wandered through the site to see how the preparations were going, how quickly human beings could put fear and grief behind them and move on. The summer had so far been a golden time for them all; the all-pervading enthusiasm and zest for life which abounded in the barony such a contrast to the horror of the summer-past. There was something wonderful about that, something altogether stirring about the ability of ordinary folk to turn their backs on the dark days, and embrace the light with all their hearts.

No one talked about the night terrors anymore, Blair had begun to notice. Even during the meetings he and James had held with various town officials to organise the solstice celebration, there had not been one single mention of them. It was all about moving forward, celebrating the turning of the year, conveying luck on the harvest – which by every indication would be a bountiful one. And Blair could appreciate that willingness to embrace the positive and shed the negative very well indeed.

As the day advanced the field began to fill, the festival proper getting underway. People greeted Blair as he passed. “Lord Warden,” they called him, smiling – it seemed the temporary designation James had conveyed upon Blair had stuck. Others whom Blair had spoken to on numerous occasions when they’d sought safety in the hall, gave more familiar greetings. And one or two conveyed luck upon him: “May the fae bring you good fortune, my lord.” Bemused by the strange blessing – he’d never heard the old legends invoked that way before - Blair nodded graciously and went on his way.

Later, having met up with Megan, Rafe and Grace, Blair went to watch the mummers in action. They were acting out a well-known folk tale, one all of them there had grown up hearing: _The Tale of Tom Carrow_. The story was that the young man had inadvertently entered a faery mound, and been granted long life by the fae who dwelled within. Tom had never forgotten the debt he owed them for that gift, so when, in his old age, a great beast came which drove the fae from the land, he used his cunning and wits to defeat it. Henceforth the fae returned to the land once more, and by means of a reward they extended the gift of long life to Tom’s descendants in perpetuity. Even now, elders who lived to a ripe old age were often referred to as sons and daughters of Carrow, and old gaffers in particular were frequently called ‘Old Tom’, no matter their true given name.

It was an engaging performance, the young man playing Tom Carrow – who aged throughout the play thanks to the application of a false beard and an adopted stoop – was serious and comedic by turns. The fae were portrayed by fleet-footed, lithe young women, fluttering and dancing like little birds across the stage, who delighted Grace with their skill and beauty. The evil creature – dark-winged and sharply clawed – resembled to Blair’s eyes a night terror. And thrown out of his concentration on the drama for a moment, that comparison gave Blair pause. He’d never before considered that the beast in this tale might, indeed, be rooted in something so familiar and deadly.

Later, Blair joined James, where he sat entertaining various dignitaries from his own barony, as well those as from further afield who had accepted his invitation to join in the celebrations. As Blair took a seat beside him, the baron put an arm about Blair and leaned in close. “You’ve come at just the right time to save me from committing murder,” he whispered. “Lord Booth is the most irritating man I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. If you can think of a way to get me out of here without giving offence, I will reward you well.” James’ tone became lascivious. “I will reward you well on my knees.”

Blair swallowed, his loins stirring at the promise in James’ hoarse whisper. Then he turned to the others in the gathering, aware of James’ gaze upon him all the while. “I ask your pardon, my lords, for this interruption. As you know, my lord baron is a sentinel, and as such requires some time to prepare himself for the noise which the fireworks will make. I hope you won’t mind if he accompanies me for a while.”

The assembled nobility made suitable noises of assent and, without further ado, both he and James took their leave.

A short while later, as the firework display lit the sky with bangs and crackles punctuated by the excited whoops of the crowd, Blair leaned panting against the trunk of a tree a little distant from the field. James kneeled before him in the darkness, his senses on alert on the off-chance someone might approach, as he drove Blair relentlessly to explosive pleasure with his mouth and hands. After that Blair found himself crushed bruisingly close to James’ chest, pressing his mouth hard against his partner’s to stifle James’ cries and moans, as he used his hand to bring him likewise to shuddering completion.

In the aftermath, both of them aglow with satiety and love, they walked through the field hand in hand, mingling with their people and enjoying the festivities right through until sunrise.

***

Late summer was a beautiful time of year in the barony. Riding out alone on the moors a few mornings later, intent on clearing his head before an afternoon spent in council with James, Blair luxuriated in the aromatic air, his eyes finding rest and respite on the warm colours of the heather. The peace and tranquillity of the countryside consumed and renewed him, as it always did.

Life these days, Blair decided, was very, very good indeed.

Accustomed to peace and quiet out here, whether alone or accompanied by the baron, Blair was surprised to hear voices. In the next moment, their source came in sight: several young girls on the verge of womanhood, chattering and giggling together as they breakfasted beside one of the ancient barrows which littered this land.

As he rode past, Blair paused and nodded at them politely. “Good day,” he said. “It’s a beautiful morning to take the air.”

“We’ve been here all night,” one of the girls told him, the others watching him shyly from behind lowered lashes, reminding Blair – to his blushing embarrassment – that he’d become somewhat of an object of fantasy for some of the young women of the town.

Unaware of his discomfort, the girl who had spoken indicated the mound at their backs. “We’ve been playing with the fae. They are so beautiful, my lord. Isn’t it wonderful that they’ve returned?”

Blair frowned. “The fae are just a legend,” he said. “Though I’m sure your game has been a lot of fun.”

The girls exchanged a look amongst themselves, before another spoke up. “We’re not making it up,” she insisted. “The fae are real! Everyone knows that, my lord.”

Blair smiled, feeling oddly ancient amongst these children, despite his own relative youth. “Of course they are real,” he said, playing along. “And I will leave you to play with them some more.”

They all laughed at that, making Blair feel all the more out of his depth. “Don’t be silly, my lord!” the first one who’d spoken piped up once more. “They only come out at night!”

Blair bade them farewell and, with the laughter of the girls ringing in his ears, rode away, feeling strangely discomfited by the whole encounter.

When Blair was sitting with James in council later that day, yet more oddness revealed itself; although this time of an altogether more sinister nature.

“It’s a mystery, my lord, and that’s the truth.” Michael the Warrener had come before them to ask for help, since his entire colony of rabbits – his entire livelihood - had apparently disappeared overnight.

Beside James, Blair spoke up. “Could it have been a fox? Or a family of foxes, perhaps?”

Michael looked at Blair a little scathingly, despite his overall deference. “I know fox-sign when I see it, my lord, and that wasn’t it. It’s like they were never there. No hair, no bones, nothing left behind. They’re just _gone_.”

“I will have my own gamekeeper take a look,” James promised. “If there is a predator at large which is taking livestock, then others will need to be made aware so that they can take precautions.”

The whole matter was troubling, especially given the fact that the night terrors had only been gone for a year. As soon as Michael had been dismissed, reassured by promises of an investigation and baronial support to set up a new colony of rabbits, Blair turned to James. “What do you think did it?”

James shrugged. “Perhaps a mountain lion, or a bear. Maybe even a wolf – there are all manner of creatures living in the wild places, and one or several could have wandered close, drawn by the promise of easy food.”

Blair shuddered. “I don’t like it,” he confessed. “It reminds me too much of the night terrors.” He turned pleading eyes on James. “You are sure that they’re are all dead, aren’t you?” he asked, the question only half-serious.

James blinked. “What are you talking about?”

Blair laughed. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t joke about them, James. You know very well what the night terrors are.”

James’ act was a good one – Blair could almost believe he meant it. “Don’t joke about _what_?” James shook his head. “Blair, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What are ‘night terrors’?”

Pulled up short, Blair took a good look at his sentinel, then reached out through their connection towards him. The sincere bafflement he sensed terrified him. “James?” he queried. “Do you feel all right?”

“I feel absolutely fine,” James countered, but he was watching Blair intently. “I’m not so sure about you, though. Blair, your heart is racing. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Using every ounce of skill he’d learned at the Academy, Blair wrestled his turbulent emotions down deep, burying them well under the surface and forcing his heart rate and breathing under control. “Everything’s fine, James. I’m just teasing you.”

Frowning and perhaps unconvinced, James nodded, then turned his attention back to the hall and the next petitioner to come before them.

With an effort, Blair did the same. But deep inside, fear for James’ health and his apparently faulty memory consumed him.

As the afternoon wore on Blair could see that, in every other respect, James appeared to be absolutely fine. Blair watched him closely for the next few hours, ruthlessly damping down his own autonomic reflexes the whole time (his limitations on that score be damned) lest his surreptitious surveillance become too obvious. And during all of that time James appeared to be the same healthy, vigorous man of sound mind that he’d always been.

Yet James had absolutely no memory, it seemed, of the night terrors. And that lapse terrified Blair dreadfully.

Blair had known a Master once, back at the Academy, who’d suffered a form of creeping dementia. In a matter of months, the poor man’s sharp intellect had deteriorated from a slight absentmindedness, through to an inability to recognise anyone near and dear to him or even to remember what happened from one moment to the next. It had culminated, less than a year later, in him reverting to something close to infancy, unable to take care of even his own most basic needs. He’d died shortly after it had become that bad, cared for round the clock by staff in the Academy infirmary.

The thought that such a tragic, ignoble fate might be in store for his sharp-witted, dignified sentinel, filled Blair with absolute horror and grief.

Needing desperately to gather his thoughts before James confronted him in private about what was troubling him – because no matter his efforts, Blair was simply not capable of hiding his worry from James forever - Blair made his excuses when council ended, and made his way out into the courtyard. He went straight to the stables, needing to put some distance between himself and James so that he could sit down and process this whole thing.

A while later, having ridden out once again to his favourite stretch of moorland, Blair was no closer to coming to terms with his dreadful discovery. Sitting on a limestone rock, head in hands, his love and grief for James almost overwhelmed him.

Gradually, as the sun began to sink beneath the horizon, he regained control. Breathing deep, he forced himself to focus on what was important – that James needed him. And Blair vowed that, no matter what form James’ illness took, that he would remain strong and staunch at his side, ensuring that he got the care and support that he needed.

The time for grief would come. But that time was not now; from this moment on, Blair vowed to put his own feelings to one side. Control having been established, hard-won though it was, Blair rose. It was time to get back to the castle, and do his duty by the man he loved.

Blair’s horse had wandered off a little way. Blair could hear the jangle of bit behind a nearby mound so, whistling a summons, he walked around it, intending to recapture the beast.

What he found there stopped him in his tracks.

The whole side of the mound, round here in the shadows away from the setting sun, was covered with a moving carpet of darkness. Peering at it more closely, he could see that the shifting shadows were formed by what looked like hundreds of tiny creatures jostling for space on the surface of the barrow.

Baffled – Blair had never seen anything like it – he stepped closer, then reeled back in surprise as the whole lot of them lifted into the air. Like a huge, dark cloud they launched right at him, and reflexively Blair cried out and lifted his hands to cover his face; but they swerved away at the last minute and none of them touched him. Lifting his eyes cautiously, Blair watched as they soared to and fro in the air above his head, keeping in formation like a flock of starlings. But unlike birds they were utterly silent, the only sound made in their passing the whirr and whoosh of hundreds of tiny wings.

A final pass above his head had Blair ducking, then they wheeled about and away, flying far off over the moorland.

His anxiety for James momentarily forgotten, Blair stood stunned in their wake, the whole encounter filling him with unfathomable disquiet.

***

Blair’s concern for James – and his determination to keep his worry suppressed so that his sentinel would not perceive it – kept him fully occupied for the next few days. At times, however, he caught James watching him, a frown on his face. And it took every bit of skill at misdirection Blair possessed to keep James from asking him outright what was troubling him.

Blair was determined, however, for now at least, to keep his fear for James to himself. In every other respect, the baron seemed just as sharp as ever. If and when that changed, Blair would reconsider whether secrecy was the correct course of action. But for now he just watched and waited and hoped for the best, paying particular attention to James’ general health and diet, to ensure his sentinel’s continued well-being in any way he could.

As for the odd experience he’d had on the moor, Blair decided that the creatures he’d seen were probably bats. Though he’d not managed to get a good look at them, their flight pattern certainly fitted the description of the beasts James had seen in the far north. And, Blair theorised, since the bats’ habitat had been disturbed – the cave they’d roosted in set alight – it was only logical that they would seek somewhere else to live. Now that the night terrors had gone, the old barrows and tombs of the moors provided a perfect home for them.

Blair wondered if it was, indeed, bats which had given rise to the legends of the fae. It seemed a logical supposition, especially given that talk of the fae was currently everywhere he looked since the creatures had moved into the vicinity. He’d lost count of how many times recently he’d been wished ‘the luck of the fae’ by some well-meaning person, or heard gossip that the fae had returned. And on his frequent rides out on the moors, either alone or with others, it had become a regular sight to see posies and offerings of fruit and other foodstuffs on the mounds, placed there by those who sought the blessing of the fabled creatures.

***

James was worried. There was something preying on Blair’s mind; something that his guide was going out of his way _not_ to share with his sentinel. And James, it was fair to say, was not happy about that. Not happy at _all_.

Yet every time he tried to broach the topic, Blair somehow managed to evade giving James the answer he wanted. Blair, James had discovered during the period they had been together, was incredibly skilled at changing the subject and diverting attention elsewhere. Not to mention the fact that his Academy training – no matter how relatively ill-adept he’d been in that area – enabled him to mask his feelings quite effectively.

What Blair didn’t seem to realise, however, was that it was the very fact he was concealing his reactions in that way – when he’d hardly ever made an effort to do so before – which made James smell a rat.

If James was a suspicious man, or if he did not know Blair as well as only a paired sentinel can know his guide, he might have wondered exactly what Blair was up to when he took his frequent solitary rides out on the moor. A lesser man might have suspected trysts with a secret lover. James, for his part, did not believe any such thing. For one thing, Blair often came back from those solitary jaunts even more white-faced and closed-off than he’d been before he went. Whatever was going on with him, it was most definitely not making him happy.

James resolved to watch Blair closely for the next little while, in the hope that he’d find something out. And if all else failed, he would pin Blair down and demand answers.

If the fae willed it, then hopefully he’d be successful.

***

Blair was tutoring Grace when he heard it: a scratching sound, coming from the closet in the corner of the room they used for lessons.

Grace had paused in her work and, knowing she must have noticed it too, Blair said, “You hear that, Grace? See if you can use your senses to find out what it is.” He assumed a mouse had found its way in through cracks in the mortar, and was scurrying around in the closet.

“I can’t hear anything, Blair,” Grace said. Her face was beet-red.

Blair blinked and looked at her closely. He’d never, in all the time he’d spent with her, known Grace to lie – yet she was clearly doing so now. “Grace,” he said, gravely disappointed. “Please do as I ask.”

Her face crumpled. “I’m sorry, Blair,” she told him, her lip quivering as if she was going to cry. “But it was so pretty, and I always wanted a pet. I know I’m not supposed to have one, but oh, it’s so beautiful! Please forgive me, Blair.”

Completely taken aback by Grace’s behaviour, Blair narrowed his eyes at her as she put her head in her hands, more than half-sure that her contrition was false. Then he rose and snicked the lock on the closet. Inside, down on the floor, the scrabbling noise could be heard louder than ever. Reaching in to the shadowy confines, his hands found a large glass jar, which vibrated under his hands with the movement of whatever was confined within.

“Wait!” Grace’s imperative voice stopped him from pulling it out so he could take a look. “It hates the sunlight, Blair.” Casting a look over his shoulder, Blair watched as Grace closed the shutters, plunging the room into darkness. A moment later, he felt her at his elbow. “I’ve got a candle,” she told him, and he felt a taper placed in his hand. “I’ll hold it, if you light it,” she said.

“Grace,” Blair said through clenched teeth, even as he moved over by feel to the fireplace to light the taper from the glowing embers banked there. “Don’t think for one moment you’ll get away with having lied to me like that.”

He returned to her side and, as he used the taper, light from the candle flared and Grace’s sad eyes came into view. “I’m really sorry, Blair,” she said miserably. “Truly I am. But when you see it, you’ll understand.” Despite her apparent remorse, there was a considerable stubborn pout to her lips. “I just didn’t want anyone to make me put it back. Though I suppose,” she added petulantly, “that’s just what you’ll do.”

Sighing at her blatant attempts to manipulate him, Blair reached into the closet, and lifted out the glass jar. Hefting it aloft, he brought it close to the candle in Grace’s hands to study its contents.

The creature within was tiny; no more than four inches tall. It was oddly man-shaped, almost like a little doll, its face currently hidden behind two surprisingly human looking hands but for the sharp-looking claws which extended from its fingers. From its shoulder-blades protruded a pair of intricate, filigreed wings.

Blair turned the jar this way and that, marvelling at how it caught the light from the candle. He’d initially thought its hide was jet-black, but now he could see that it was a riot of rainbow colours, glinting dazzlingly like oil on water.

“I’ve fed it and given it water,” Grace told him, breaking his reverie. “And look,” she guided his hand to the top of the jar. “I put holes in the top so it can breathe. And I’ve given it straw to lie in, so it’s got a nice warm bed. I’m taking good care of it, Blair.”

Ignoring Grace’s transparent attempt to convince him not to take her illicit pet away, Blair wondered aloud, “What is it?”

“It’s one of the fae, of course!” Grace answered.

At that moment the creature came out from behind its hands, and revealed itself to Blair – and he almost dropped the jar in shock. Miniscule though it was, it bore the very face which haunted his darkest dreams; a face from last summer when he’d lain wounded in the courtyard, and the thing had fallen dead beside him.

The face of a night terror.

***

Blair very much wanted to show the thing to James, but he doubted the wisdom of doing so – after that first time, Blair had carefully mentioned the night terrors to the baron on a couple of other occasions, only to get a blank look in return. So instead, he took it to Simon.

To his horror, Simon took one look at it, and rounded on Blair. “This is outrageous!” he said angrily. “You’ll bring bad luck on us all, treating one of the fae like this!” Simon leaned in close to the tiny being in the jar. “My apologies,” he said, in the gentlest tone Blair had ever heard from him. “As soon as the sun goes down, I will set you free.” Then Simon turned and glared at Blair. “And this must _not_ ,” he stated, “happen again.”

Blair was dumbfounded. “Simon, look at it!” he urged. “It’s a night terror! All right, it _is_ a tiny one. But there is no mistaking what it is!”

“Lord Warden,” Simon said, suddenly all stiff formality. “You are the guide of our master, and as such I have the greatest respect for you. But I must ask you to cease this madness _right_ now. The fae are not to be trifled with, lest we lose their blessing.”

Feeling as though he’d stepped into a nightmare, Blair asked, “And the night terrors? Did we have _their_ blessing too?”

Simon snorted dismissively. “The night terrors are a tale to frighten children, nothing more.” Then the seneschal turned back to the fae in the jar, his face softening into wonder.

Appalled, Blair turned and fled.

***

Blair was afraid he was going mad.

After leaving Simon’s office, acting on a gut feeling, Blair made his way down to the town. Once he’d arrived he meandered here and there, making conversation with people he met. After exchanging the usual pleasantries he asked each person, as casually as possible, about the night terrors. Just as he had feared, very few of them had any idea what he meant, and those who did expressed the belief that the night terrors were mythical creatures, and not real at all. No one, without exception, remembered ever encountering one.

It seemed that the terrible summer past, during which so many of their friends and relatives had been killed, had been erased from everyone’s memories – everyone, that was, except for Blair. When the names of the deceased were brought up, those who Blair questioned initially showed confusion, which cleared after a moment. “He was killed in an accident,” they would say, their eyes strangely distant. Or: “Her heart gave out.” And even, “He died in his sleep.” That latter, at least, was closer to the truth – the poor man had been taken and devoured as he slept. Most frequently, he heard over and over, “The plague took them,” a more plausible explanation for the mass deaths which had occurred, Blair supposed, if one no longer remembered the truth.

Finally, not knowing what else to do, Blair found himself at Madam Rowena’s door.

The old lady answered his knock, her face grim. “Come in,” she bade him. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“Do you say that to everyone who knocks at your door?” Blair couldn’t help but ask.

Rowena shrugged. “To some of them,” she said, seeming considerably more dispirited than the last time Blair had seen her. “To you, however, I do not lie.”

Once more ushered into the kitchen, Rowena faced Blair across the table. “Gwen and the boys are out, so we can speak freely.” She fixed her gaze on Blair. “Why have you come?”

Such a question from the hedge-guide would usually result in Blair making a flippant answer, reflecting his disdain for her profession – _don’t you already know?_ – but now was most certainly not the time. “Tell me about the night terrors,” he said instead, fearing terribly that he’d get the same answer from her as he’d got from everybody else.

“Fearsome creatures, who take people from their beds at night and devour them,” she said. “And they are very, very real.”

Blair’s breath exploded out of him, his relief was so profound. “You remember them?” he asked, somewhat rhetorically since Rowena had already said as much.

She nodded. “I do. So does my youngest grandson. I think the three of us are perhaps the only ones in the barony who have not been affected.”

“Why us?” Blair asked. But really, he’d already guessed the answer – that was why he’d come here, after all.

Rowena rose, and walked over to the stove. She put the kettle on the hotplate before she turned back to look at Blair. “Those of us with the Sight see under the surface of things,” she said. “Ordinary folk just see what’s in front of their eyes.”

“What about sentinels?” Blair demanded. “James is far from ordinary, yet he’s affected too.”

She shrugged. “Sentinels are a lot like ordinary folk, only they can see much further. But most of them have the capacity for Sight too, to see the truth hidden from regular eyes, if guided to find it. It is up to you to get your man to reel in his senses, and make him see what’s right under his nose.”

After seeing the fae in the jar, Blair had no doubt what, exactly, _was_ right under his nose. “The fae are the night terrors,” he stated. “Or at least, their young. The dead adults James and the others found in the mountains weren’t eaten by scavengers – they were eaten by their own offspring. There are spiders in the southern continent who do the same thing. They die after their eggs hatch, and their bodies provide sustenance for the hatchlings.”

Rowena nodded. “That is likely,” she agreed. “And what is more, the offspring are great in number. Dozens of the babies are nesting in the eaves and cellars of each and every house, right here in the town. And already people are feeding them and nurturing them, hoping for the blessing of the fae.”

“But why?” Blair’s incredulity at the widespread madness knew no bounds. “How can everyone have forgotten about the night terrors? And why are people so enamoured of the little ones?”

“I believe it is a means of survival,” Rowena said, bringing cups over to the table. “The young creatures are vulnerable, so they protect themselves by creating an aura which makes people feel protective of them – even reverent. The same aura causes those affected to lose their memory of the grown beasts – because if we remembered, we would not be likely to welcome the little ones amongst us. If you recall, right up until last summer, it had always been believed that it was bad luck to kill a night terror, no matter how many people they took. I think perhaps the effect wears off, as the creatures grow and become able to physically protect themselves. But the memory of our fondness for the fae stays with us, perpetuated in legend and superstition, and that makes us reluctant to fight them, even when doing so would save our lives.”

“And in the meantime,” Blair continued the thought, “we feed them, and they grow – and eventually, when they’re big enough…”

“We become their prey,” Rowena finished. “We’re nothing more than cattle, to them.”

“Rowena,” Blair said, at a sudden horror-filled realisation, “if every adult had more than one baby…”

Rowena nodded. “There are far more of them than us,” she said. “Leastwise it appears so, from what I’ve observed. This time around, they’ll kill us all.”

“Or they’ll kill our children,” Blair said. “That’s what you told me; that’s what you saw, isn’t it? Their lifespan vastly exceeds ours - the night terrors were fully grown, even when my mother was a young girl. They must outlive us by several generations. By the time they reach adulthood, those who knew them as tiny imps will be long dead.”

“There is something else you must know,” Rowena said, sitting down wearily. “I come from a long line of seers. Sometimes the gift skips a generation – Gwen hasn’t got it, but her youngest son has. My mother had it, and my grandmother. And my great-grandmother…” Rowena sighed. “Back then, seers were not always treated with the respect they are now. My great-grandmother was denounced as a witch, and an angry mob stoned her to death. My grandmother – she was only five years old at the time – watched it happen.”

Appalled, Blair said, “That’s… that’s awful, Rowena. I’m so sorry.”

“There’s more,” Rowena said blankly. She took a deep breath. “My great-gran was denounced for plotting against the fae. That’s why they killed her.”

The implications of that sunk in, during the silence which followed.

“Rowena,” Blair said earnestly, “I’ll do whatever I can to protect you - _and_ your grandson.”

To his surprise, Rowena laughed. “It’s not me you need to worry about,” she said. “It’s _you_. If you go around here, there and everywhere, asking questions about the fae and blithely talking about the night terrors, people are going to get suspicious, and their protectiveness toward the fae will force them to act. You demonstrate any ill-will towards the creatures at all, and they’ll see to it that you’re removed; simple as that.”

“James,” Blair said with certainty, “would never let anyone hurt me.”

“James,” Rowena pointed out, “is one of them.”

“I’ll make him see the truth,” Blair vowed. “He’ll listen to me.”

Rowena stood as the kettle began to whistle. “Your overconfidence will be the death of you, boy,” she said. “And no, that is not a prophecy. That’s just me wishing I could knock some sense into your silly head.” And with that remark, she moved over to take the kettle off the boil.

***

The news that Simon brought to James, that Blair had brought a fae in a glass jar to him, and had been raving about the fabled night terrors when he did so, filled him with dread.

James had known that something was amiss with Blair for a while, but he’d never previously entertained the notion that his guide might be ill. Now, however, he was sadly forced to face the fact that, quite probably, Blair had become unhinged. That the memory of his ordeal at the hands of his rapists, and the trauma he’d suffered thanks to Master Brackett, had finally tipped him over the edge into madness.

In the days that followed, James utilised his sensory abilities to keep tabs on Blair. He listened as Blair leafed through book after book in the library, going there himself afterwards to pick up the traces of Blair’s scent and the residual warmth of his fingertips to find out what he’d been reading. Blair, it seemed, was methodically combing through the ancient histories of the land, and looking up references to the fae. Most disturbingly, he had apparently lingered longest on the mythological tracts, all of which contained fantasies and children’s tales about the night terrors.

Worse was to come. Blair had, apparently, been asking questions; “What do you remember about the night terrors?” being the most common; and, “Don’t you think the fae look familiar?” being another. And when one day he heard Blair ask the same questions of Grace, bringing his madness into their daily lessons, James knew he had a responsibility to act.

He could not allow his guide to poison the minds of his people, and _especially_ that of a child in his care, against the blessed fae, no matter that he loved Blair with all his heart.

***

Blair had put off the inevitable confrontation with James for almost a week. One reason for that was his overwhelming fear that, no matter what he said, James might simply not believe him. The confidence Blair had displayed in Rowena’s kitchen in relation to that issue had been in large part bluster; simply an attempt to talk _himself_ into believing that James could be made to see the truth.

The other reason was that he’d thought that finding supporting evidence from elsewhere might help James to grasp reality. So he’d spent days reading and collating information, from children’s stories right up to the driest historical volumes ever written. And at last, armed with that body of evidence in the shape of several copied sheets of parchment, Blair had finally decided to face James, in the hope that he could remove the glamour from the baron’s eyes once and for all.

He’d also, by means of surreptitious questions, established that the scale of the problem was such that everyone else, without exception, appeared to be living under the same delusion.

The chamber he shared with his sentinel was lit by candlelight when Blair entered, James seated by the fire with a goblet of mulled wine in his hand. The baron looked up in welcome, flames from the fireplace, lit against the cooler air of approaching autumn, dancing in his eyes. “Blair,” he urged, standing up in greeting. “Come sit with me.”

Blair placed the sheaf of documents down, before striding over to be enveloped in strong arms. “Hey,” he said, as he felt himself held tightly to James’ chest. “Are you all right?”

James just held him tighter. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Something’s not right, Blair. I can sense it. I was hoping you could help me find out what it is.”

Pulling away, Blair searched James’ face, hope blossoming within. “You can feel it?”

James nodded. “Yes.” He looked desperately unhappy. “Sit,” he urged, steering Blair to the chair he’d recently vacated. Crouching at Blair’s feet the baron lifted a goblet from a tray – twin to the one he’d been using – and poured wine from the pot beside the fire into it. He handed it to Blair. “Drink, and I’ll tell you what’s wrong,” he said. “Then, perhaps, you can tell me what you think.”

“All right.” Blair took the goblet, and sipped at the wine – it was a little more tart than his usual taste, but deliciously warming. “What is it you feel?”

James was still crouching in front of Blair, looking at him searchingly. “Tell me about the night terrors, Blair,” he said.

Blair blinked. “Do you remember them?” Relief washed through him, making him feel light headed with the intensity of it. “James, that’s great!”

“What do _you_ remember?” James asked.

Blair took another sip of his wine. “I remember everything,” he said. “All the people they killed, our intention to stand and fight them. I was so scared,” he confessed, “when you didn’t remember them. First I thought you were ill. Then,” he laughed, “when I found out no one else knew what they were either, I thought it might be me.” The room spun, suddenly, and Blair would have lost his grip on his goblet but for James reaching out to take it from his grasp.

Blair watched, as though in a dream, as James placed the goblet carefully down. Then he felt his hand taken in the baron’s and held tenderly. James was watching him closely, his expression full of love. “The night terrors,” James said gently, “are not real.”

“James…” The word felt thick on Blair’s tongue; unwieldy. Fear broke through the fog which swamped him. “What have you done?” he gasped.

“Hush, Blair. Hush.” James’ voice came from far away. Blair was no longer sitting in the chair, but lying down, cradled in the strong arms of his sentinel. “Relax,” he heard James tell him softly. “Don’t be afraid.”

“James!” Panicked, Blair tried to fight the deadly lethargy which overwhelmed him, to no avail. “Please…”

But his own voice tapered off into silence, as darkness took him.

***

Blair had trouble waking, feeling somehow heavy and paralysed, his mouth as dry as bone.

“It’s all right,” James’ voice beckoned. The sensation of a cool cloth on Blair’s forehead comforted and soothed. “I’m here, Blair. All is well.”

Without realising how he’d done so, Blair knew that he must have conveyed his thirst because he felt himself propped against a familiar, warm torso, a cup of icy cold water at his lips. Blair drank thirstily; gratefully. His immediate discomfort eased he relaxed, discovering a peaceful blankness of mind and body.

Blair drifted for a while. Then, after an indeterminate time, lucidity sluggishly began to return, Blair’s thoughts full of strange questions and a niggling sense of anxiety which, at last, dragged him inexorably towards full consciousness. As he opened his eyes the room swam murkily into focus, the darkness at its recesses unfamiliar and oddly disturbing.

Turning his head on his pillow, Blair could see James, sitting staring into the fireplace which dominated one bare, stone wall of the room. Blair shifted on the bed, and the sudden chink of metal as he moved caused James’ gaze to snap towards him.

Blair felt it then. The unexpected heaviness of metal surrounding his right ankle, the chain attached to it jangling harshly as Blair jerked in shock at the discovery. Following with appalled eyes the long chain of links, where they coiled and twisted across the floor, Blair could see that the other end disappeared through a small hole in the wall, the means by which it was secured invisible from inside this room.

James appeared by his side, attempting to hold him still. “Be easy,” he urged. “Just relax.”

Blair jerked away from James’ hands, his movements clumsy and uncoordinated, the chain manacled to his leg a manic riot of metal upon metal as he moved. He shrank right away from James until his back was pressed against the head of the bed, his knees drawn up in a self-protective gesture, as he swiftly examined his surroundings.

This was nothing more than a cell, with one single, barred window high on the wall. The fact that it also boasted the comfortable bed on which he lay as well as other rich furnishings, did not disguise the barren starkness underneath.

“Where are we?” Blair’s harsh croak betrayed his fright.

James ’voice was calm and measured. “We’re out in the country, a little more than a two-hour ride from the castle. One of my ancestors built this place, to confine his brother in after he committed murder. It was a tragedy – the brother was quite mad and not responsible for his actions. Instead of hanging him, my ancestor thought it kinder to let him live out his days in seclusion.”

“You drugged me.” Memory was returning, the dire straits he found himself in the most effective wake-up call Blair could ever imagine.

“Yes.” James was watching him levelly. “I didn’t want to frighten you unnecessarily. I thought it would be easier on you if you were to be transported here unconscious.”

“Easier?” Rage erupted – a far more liberating emotion than terror. “You drug me, carry me off to who knows where, chain me up in a cell, and you call that _easier_?” James reached out to him, his expression full of concern, and Blair angrily hit his hands away. “Don’t _touch_ me!”

“Blair,” James placated, his voice so full of patronising condescension that, for the first time since they’d met, Blair felt an almost irresistible desire to punch him. “You must understand. You are suffering from a sickness of the mind, and it is far safer for you to be confined here until it passes. This is entirely in your best interests.”

“Horseshit!” Blair swore, anger and desperation inspiring him to unaccustomed profanity. “It’s not _me_ who’s ill, James – it’s you! It’s _all_ of you! The night terrors have twisted your thoughts. James, Please!” Blair poured every ounce of earnestness he possessed into his words. “Please, try to remember! Last summer – we were going to fight them! You went north with an army, just a few months ago, and you saw them all dead in a cave. James,” he pleaded, “Please, try!”

But to Blair’s dismay, James shook his head sadly. “Listen to yourself,” he said. “You are speaking of a children’s tale as if it were true. Blair,” James said turning the full force of his gaze on Blair, and speaking slowly and carefully as if to a child or an idiot. “The night terrors are not real. There was no fight. There was no army. These are stories your mind has concocted which, because of your illness, you believe to be the truth.”

“Then how come so many people died?” Blair ground out through clenched teeth. “You can’t deny that happened. What killed so many of them, huh? Answer me that!”

“A plague,” James answered easily. “A plague which, thanks to the return of the fae and the blessing they have given us, has gone forever.”

Desperation fuelled Blair’s next move. “All right, then!” he shouted. “In that case, explain this!” Arms made clumsy by the residue of the drug he’d ingested, Blair tugged his shirt over his head and off. Turning, he presented his bare back to James. “How did my back get scarred?” he demanded. “Tell me that, James!”

Blair stayed still, breathing hard. He felt the bed dip as James sat down behind him, and he endured the feathery touch of the baron’s fingers on the ridged tissue. _Please_ , he willed fervently. _Please, James. Think_!

“I’m sorry, Blair,” James said after a moment. The misery in his voice caused Blair, for one shining second, to believe that James might have come to his senses; but his hopes were immediately dashed. “You were badly hurt by the men who abused you on your journey to the barony,” James went on. “Apparently more hurt than I could ever have realised. I’m so sorry they did this to you, and I’m sorry the memory of their foul actions have created this sickness in your mind.”

Confronting James with the evidence of his injury from the claws of the night terror – sustained when he’d saved the baron’s life by willingly risking his own - had been Blair’s final gambit, yet it had failed. If James didn’t even remember _that_ , then what hope was there that he’d remember _anything_?

Blair felt James get up off the bed, and he turned to see the baron stride over to the huge wooden door of the chamber, then pause beside it. “That’s not what happened,” Blair called after him, his voice full of the intense despair he felt. “James!” He choked on the words. “James, try! Try to remember!” His voice broke as James banged three times on the door with his clenched fist – evidently the signal for whoever was on the other side to open it and let him out. “James!” Blair cried out again, his movements still uncoordinated as he moved off the bed to follow, only to become entangled in the chain and land on his knees. He was dimly aware of the indignity of how he must look – clumsy, shirtless and shaking on the floor; a picture of madness indeed.

The door swung open, and James paused in the doorway. “I’ll come back in a while,” the baron said, not looking directly at Blair, as if the sight of him was painful. “Perhaps you will be a little calmer by then.”

Then the door closed, the echoing bang and the rattle and clunk of locks being engaged leaving Blair agape with horror.

James did not return for a considerable period. By the time he did Blair had recovered somewhat from the after-effects of being drugged, and had a new plan of attack.

“It was a jest,” Blair claimed decisively as James came back into the cell, the other man moving over to stand looking down at him where he sat, in the chair that James had previously occupied, by the fire. The chain on Blair’s leg, he’d found, annoying though it was, was long enough to allow him to traverse most of the circular room and enjoy its ‘comforts’- though the lock which secured it to his ankle had proved to be impervious to all efforts to remove it. Glancing up at James, Blair laughed shortly, then fixed a look of earnest contrition on his face. “Of course I don’t think the night terrors are real. I hope you – and the fae - can forgive me. I know it was in bad taste.”

James was not in the least impressed. “I am a sentinel, Blair. I know when you are lying. Your words change nothing.”

Well, so much for that. Once again, Blair cursed his inability to control heart rate and other vital signs sufficiently to keep his true feelings from his sentinel.

“So, what now?” Blair demanded. “You’ll keep me in prison until I believe what you want me to believe?”

“You will remain here, yes,” James said. “Though this is not punishment, Blair. It is important that you understand that. You are being confined here for your own safety, and for the peace of mind of others who might be disturbed by what you say. You will be well looked after here, I promise.”

Blair glared at James. “For how long?”

“Until you no longer adhere to your delusions.”

Blair licked lips gone dry. “What if that never happens?” he asked.

“Then you will remain here for good.”

“What will you tell everyone?” Blair asked, helplessness rushing through him. “What about Grace? What will you say to her, and to Megan?”

“I will tell everyone the truth,” James answered. “That you are ill. That you have gone to live in the country, where you will, if the fae will it, be nursed back to health.”

Blair pointedly rattled the chain attached to his ankle. “A fine bedside manner my nurse has,” he said sarcastically, fighting creeping terror with belligerence. “And who is this nurse, by the way? I’m sure you have better things to do with your time than wait on your mad guide personally.”

“I’ve engaged an elderly couple, who served my father well and are now retired, to see to your care. They have moved into the house adjacent to this building. Though I must warn you, Blair,” James said seriously. “They have been ordered not to engage you in conversation, and to ignore your no doubt skilful attempts to make them do so. They will see to your daily needs – your meals, laundry, the occasional bath, and making sure you have candles and enough wood to keep the fire going. They will ensure your well-being inasmuch as that is possible, given your current infirmity. But you can be very sure that they will _not_ pay any heed to your attempts to lure them into your delusions.”

“And this is going to cure me, how?” Blair asked. He looked around the room – now he was over his initial shock and more alert, he could see that the building was circular, the only entrance the heavy door James had entered through. The tiny window, high up the wall – too narrow for any adult to shimmy though, even if it were not heavily barred – was so small that Blair suspected it would not let in any more than the smallest sliver of daylight, once morning came. “James, I’m not insane,” Blair said. “But if you make me stay here, I soon will be.”

“I will provide you with things to occupy your time,” James said. “I will have books sent to you, and also parchment and writing materials. Perhaps it would help,” he said, the hopeful tone in his voice making Blair want to slap him, “if you write down the stories which plague you. Maybe that way, you could read them back and see how very unlikely they are.”

Blair snorted derisively.

James rose. “This gives me no pleasure,” he said miserably. “I love you, Blair. The thought of leaving you here and returning to the castle without you is very difficult for me.”

Blair found, understandably, that his sympathy for the baron’s plight was rather lacking under the circumstances. “I hope,” he said caustically, “when you eventually come to your senses, that you will be able to forgive yourself for this. Because right now, James, I don’t think I ever will.” He glared at James. “Don’t look to me to make this easy for you,” he said. “Because I have absolutely no intention of doing so.” And so saying, Blair fixed his eyes on the fire, the red-hot flames agitating in the grate mirroring his rage and distress.

After a moment, he heard James cross the floor and pound on the door. Blair waited until James had gone and the door had closed firmly between them, before burying his face in his hands.

***

The next morning – or at least Blair supposed it was morning, since it was only infinitesimally lighter in his cell - Blair found out why he had a chain on his ankle, despite being held inside a locked, stone chamber.

A noise of gears grinding startled him out of a fitful doze, and the chain meandered, snake-like, across the floor. A moment later, Blair was forced to follow, lest he be dragged after it.

“What the…” Blair was too startled to make much of an outcry. Instead he watched as link after link of the chain disappeared through the wall, giving him no choice but to shuffle along in the same direction. The movement stopped, to his very great relief, when he was a foot or so away from the stone, leaving him unable to move in any direction away from it.

A moment later the door opened, flooding the dim cell with daylight. Blair could see that the door led directly outside, giving him the impression that this building he was confined in was not unlike descriptions he’d heard of the ancient watchtowers which could be found along the coast, except that the stone ceiling, which had seemed lofty in the firelight, was actually no higher than about twelve or fifteen feet above his head, corbelled and tapering off to a single capstone right in the middle.

Once the door was open an elderly woman came in. She studiously avoided looking at Blair, instead moving over to the bed to strip the linen from it and replace it with new, fresh sheets. Behind her an old man shambled over to the fire, and set to work clearing out the old ashes and setting new wood and kindling in the grate.

Blair’s shocked disbelief at being restrained in this undignified way found its expression, once again, in annoyance. “I’m not dangerous,” he told them. “Chaining me against the wall is absolutely unnecessary.”

Neither of his keepers paid him any heed – it was as if he’d not spoken at all. Instead the two of them went about their various tasks in silence, ignoring Blair as though he simply did not exist.

Blair, for his part, found it impossible to keep quiet. “Good morning,” he said. “I’d be pleased to know your names,” he said, as courteously as he could manage under the circumstances, “if our acquaintance is likely to be a long one.” When he received no reply to that, he tried reassurance – if possible, he needed to get these people on his side. “I know the baron has instructed you not to converse with me, and I want you to know I take no offence since you are merely following his orders. Yet, wouldn’t this be less unpleasant for us all if we could at least maintain basic civility? It’s quite safe to look at me, and even to bid me good morning, I assure you.”

Blair’s words, once again fell on deaf ears.

Tasks were completed in stony silence, and not once did either of his jailers glance in Blair’s direction. The floor was swept, the water jug replenished, more water supplied for washing, the chamber pot taken and returned empty, firewood stacked beside the fireplace and fresh candles placed around the room; all with wordless efficiency. Eventually both of them left, only for the woman to return alone a short while later, a tray in her arms containing bread, fruit and a dish of oatmeal – Blair’s preferred breakfast dish. She set the tray down silently on the table, and left. Behind her the door closed with a resounding bang, throwing the cell once more into the half-light from the window.

A moment later, the noise of machinery behind Blair heralded a slackening of the chain, the links pouring back through the wall to pool on the floor beside him like water.

Blair found as he moved across to the table, the chain dragging heavily at his ankle, that his hands were shaking.

Life after that settled into a strange, dreamlike routine, consisting of hours of solitude punctuated only by the times Blair was dragged across the cell to be chained close to the wall so that his keepers could enter. Food was delivered in silence and, more often than not, taken away uneaten, Blair not having the stomach to consume very much at all. And every night Blair’s sleep was disturbed by nightmares, filled with a frightening and overwhelming sense of having been buried alive. But those dreams were not the worst – the ones from which he woke weeping were those where James treated him with tenderness and love, and told Blair that he believed him.

Blair’s found some of his own, familiar clothes in a chest – evidence at how well planned in advance this confinement had been. Although he discovered, to his dismay, that every single pair of breeches he owned had been altered; slit up one leg, the opening secured with straps and buckles so that he’d be able to fasten them once on. This, he immediately deduced, was to facilitate the chain on his ankle. It was clear that the intention was for the chain to stay attached for a protracted period – a discovery which filled him with a sense of cold, anguished dread and a desperate urge to get the thing off. Yet the metal refused to yield under his scrabbling fingers, the manacle around his ankle secured just tight enough not to chafe, and locked tight.

Inevitably, Blair entertained a constant and almost overwhelming desire for escape. But to achieve such a thing seemed an impossibility – the manacle on his ankle was securely fastened, clearly designed by a master metalsmith, the lock well-made and impervious to all Blair’s attempts to prise it apart. The chain – made of thick, unbreakable links - allowed him enough play to traverse almost all of the circular chamber, yet he was unable to reach the heavy door; which itself was secured by what sounded like a single, enormous lock and a heavy bar every time it closed.

At no point was Blair allowed anything sharp within his reach – the cutlery he was given to use was wooden, and he was never, despite pleading repeatedly for it, given the means by which to shave. Consequently, when James arrived to visit a week into his imprisonment, Blair was sporting the beginnings of an impressive beard.

Unlike when his keepers came, James entered the chamber without securing Blair to the wall first. Blair started in surprise when the door opened without warning, blinking in the sudden daylight like an owl before the door closed again with a bang.

As Blair stood there, dumbstruck, James moved around the chamber, lighting candles as he went to banish the afternoon gloom which barely illuminated the cell at all. Finally he turned to look at Blair, who discovered to his perverse satisfaction that his belligerence had not diminished during seven days of solitary confinement. “Have you forbidden me a razor to make me better look the part of a lunatic?” Blair demanded. “Or is it that you fear I’ll cut the throats of my jailers, despite the fact that they chain me to the wall every time they come in?”

“Blair,” James said pleadingly. “Please, don’t-”

“Don’t what?” Locked up with nothing more than his thoughts for an entire week, Blair did not feel inclined to be charitable – he’d built up a considerable amount of resentment and anger over the past few days. “Don’t tell you how humiliated I feel every time this chain pulls me to the wall? Don’t tell you what it’s like, never seeing the sun, apart from during a few minutes each day through the open doorway which I can’t go through? Don’t tell you what an _ass_ you are?”

Ignoring Blair’s outburst as though it was no more than a childish tantrum, James picked up on just one part of what he’d said. “The chain,” he said, “is for the benefit of Peter and Maeve’s peace of mind. They were understandably nervous about taking on such a responsibility and, as you’ve seen, they are not young people. It would be an easy matter for you to overpower them in a bid to escape. I refuse to put them in a position where they are concerned about such an eventuality.”

Blair was livid. “I can’t believe you’d think that of me! James, when have you ever known me to threaten harm to _anyone_? Let alone an elderly couple? Come _on_!”

“You are not in your right mind,” James retorted. “How can I be sure _what_ you’re capable of? You wished ill of the fae, Blair, comparing them to nightmare creatures of the tales of old. You spoke of your belief to all and sundry, both in the castle and in the town, trying to turn folk against our benefactors. You even spoke in such a way to _Grace_. Is it truly any wonder that I should take precautions to ensure people are protected from you? The man I knew – the guide I originally paired with – would understand that.”

Blair shook his head. “I once told someone that the _sentinel_ I knew would never permit anyone to do me harm.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I was wrong about _that_ , wasn’t I?”

“I can see you are in no mood to be reasonable,” James said, in a voice full of studied calm. “I had hoped otherwise.”

“I think I’m being extremely reasonable,” Blair said stonily. “If you wanted me to fall at your feet with kisses, then decrying me as a madman and locking me up is not the way to achieve it.”

James took a deep breath, then another, and a tendril of contact tickled that part of Blair’s mind which, since they’d paired, had facilitated their innate awareness of each other. Ruthlessly, annoyed that James was presuming to use him in that way, Blair thrust James out of his head. “No,” he said, his teeth gritted. “You don’t touch me. You don’t touch me like that _ever_ again - or in any _other_ way - until you set me free.”

The look of intense sorrow which passed over James’ face almost thawed Blair’s resolve – James was his paired sentinel, no matter this madness between them and, undoubtedly, after a week of separation, he had need of his guide. And since they’d forged a deep link, failing to draw on that would have repercussions for James’ control. But Blair was angry enough to stand firm, nevertheless. The fae had warped James’ memory, sure enough. But it was James _himself_ who’d preferred to believe that Blair was mad and should be chained in a cell, rather than entertain the notion that he might actually have a point.

After a moment, James spoke again. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said. “I brought you some books to read – I’ll have Peter bring them in.”

If James expected thanks, Blair determined, he was destined to be disappointed.

After a tense moment, James moved to the door and banged on it thrice. It opened, and Blair could see the man – Peter, since he now had a name – standing outside. James turned, and looked at Blair sadly. “I love you, Blair, with all my heart. I know you hate me right now, but one day. I hope…” James shook his head, the thought unfinished. “I will come back to visit,” he said, “perhaps in a week. I hope you may be feeling a little better by then.”

When Blair gave no reply, James disappeared through the door, which closed behind him with a resounding bang.

Blair hobbled around the cell immediately afterwards, peevishly blowing out the candles that James had lit as he went.

***

When James returned to the castle, he sought out Simon - there was no one else he could confide in, or trust with the knowledge of where Blair was being held.

“How is he?” Simon asked, as soon as they retreated into his study.

James shook his head, hearing again in his head Blair’s rejection of him. “Angry,” he answered. “Scared too, though he took pains not to show it.” James looked at Simon miserably. “Apart from the fact that, once again, he expressed belief in the night terrors, he seemed completely lucid, and every bit as sane as he ever was.”

“Did you tell him anything?” Simon asked.

“No.” James sighed deeply. “He’s upset enough. If he were to hear that threats have been made against his life, it would only serve to distress him further.” James looked pointedly at Simon. “Perhaps it would be prudent to post guardsmen at the estate. Peter and Maeve are doing a fine job, but if they are set upon by people intent upon on a witch hunt, I doubt they’d be able to protect Blair or themselves.”

“I strongly advise against it,” Simon said. “Right now, only the four of us know where Blair is. Guardsmen – even the most loyal ones – have families and friends and, even with the best will in the world, tongues are wont to wag. Such juicy gossip would swiftly spread. Far better to keep his location a secret, known only to those who need to know.”

“How did it come to this?” James asked despairingly. “Just a short time ago Blair was well thought of in the barony - respected and popular. Yet now he is vilified as a witch.” James rubbed his face tiredly. “He’s merely a young man who has been through too much, in too short a time. He’s not dangerous – he’s ill. Why can’t people see it?”

“Reverence for the fae blinds them, my lord,” Simon said. “It seems that Blair went all over town, spreading his seditious talk. That, alongside the fact that he is believed to possess the gift of Sight, tends to bring out the old superstitions. Even I,” he confessed, “reacted badly when he came to me, with the little one in a jar. Afterwards, of course, I found out that Grace had captured it as part of a childish prank, not Blair. But Blair’s madness was obvious even so, with his talk of the night terrors and his linking of that legend to the fae.”

“I wish there was something I could do to help him,” James said. “But I fear he’s still so angry with me that he is not willing to listen to reason. Until he is ready to accept that he is indeed ill, I fail to see what steps can be taken to cure him.”

“All you can do is ensure that he is as comfortable as possible,” Simon said sympathetically. “When he is ready, perhaps more can be done.”

“Perhaps,” James allowed. “But I hate to confine him thus. His surroundings are less than salubrious for one suffering from such a darkness of spirit, yet I can think of nowhere better to keep him safe and secure. He clearly cannot remain here – even if he were not in danger, I cannot risk distressing Grace with what she might overhear if he were to be confined in the castle. And Blair being Blair; well, he is devious and engaging, and fully capable of talking his way into being set free, if he were to be guarded and cared for here among people he knows.”

“I understand your misgivings,” Simon told him, “but his current confinement is certainly better than the alternative. The whereabouts of that estate is not known outside your family – indeed, I had no idea it even existed until you told me so. Your ancestor’s desire for secrecy with regard to his brother’s confinement has served us well, under the circumstances, because if Blair were still here and the town elders had their way, he would be subjected to a public trial for witchcraft. Believe me, my lord,” he went on decisively, “you are doing the right thing. And this way, your position as baron is entirely free of taint. You moved swiftly to protect your people, no matter your personal feelings for your guide. You have gained a lot of respect for that, even if some people in the town would prefer to see Blair hanging from a noose.”

Hearing it put like that, James was forced to agree. But he still looked towards the day that Blair might be cured, or at least accepting enough of the situation to be confined in a less restrictive manner.

***

For Blair, locked in his dim, circular cell after James had left, a depression every bit as dark as the one he’d suffered when Master Brackett had come to the castle gradually fell upon him.

The books James had brought him had been carefully hand-picked, all of them omitting even the slightest mention of the fae or the night terrors. In a matter of hours, desperate as he was for something to occupy his mind, Blair had already read through nearly half of them. Reluctantly he decided he’d need to ration the rest – he had no idea how long it would be before he was supplied with more.

His jailers continued to come and go at regular intervals, never looking at Blair directly, and certainly never responding to his increasingly plaintive, one-sided attempts at conversation. He grew to anticipate their visits, going to stand beside the wall in readiness for the tautening of the chain. It intrigued him how he was more and more able to judge the imminent timing of their arrival accurately, despite having no access to a timepiece or sight of the position of the sun.

Alone with his thoughts for so much of the time, Blair found his mind going round in constant circles as he tried desperately to come up with ways to make James see the truth. Rowena had told him that sentinels were capable of Sight when guided to it. Yet Blair had never been trained in such things at the Academy, and he had no idea how to go about doing so – it was only recently he’d even begun to come to grips with his _own_ Sight. Clearly the methods he’d tried so far, by simply attempting to make James see reason by presenting him with evidence, had failed spectacularly.

The nights, when the fire died down to embers and the chamber was thrown into darkness, were the worst. Unable to find solace in sleep Blair often lay awake, longing to be back in bed beside James at the castle, wishing with all his heart that this madness had never come to pass, and that all would return to normal. That he could wake, roused by the mouth and hands of a man who loved him, ready to begin another day tutoring Grace, riding on the moors, sitting beside James in council and living a life better than he’d ever dreamed could be his.

When he did sleep, fitful, restless sleep full of vivid, upsetting dreams, Blair often woke crying out into darkness, the echoes of his cry mocking his aloneness and making him long for James and freedom with all his heart.

A week passed, and Blair began to anticipate a visit from James with what felt suspiciously like excitement. He was still desperately hurt by what James had done to him, as well as deeply angry. But he had begun to recognise, after an endless period of rationalisation, that James was every bit as much of a victim in the current circumstances as he was. The baron was a man who took great pride in fairness; who was possessed of a deep compulsion to do the right thing. If ever he did come to his senses, Blair had no doubt that his guilt over sentencing Blair to this living torment would be crippling.

And a torment it was, despite however much James might protest that Blair was being well taken care of. The lack of natural light and exercise, the complete absence of human contact, the boredom and the daily indignity of being forced to stand against the wall were already taking their toll. He had not been given a mirror, but he suspected he already cut a pathetic sight – his beard was now well established, and his clothes hung loose on his frame, since his appetite was almost non-existent.

James had called him a madman. Blair now very much suspected that anyone else, if they were to see him, would assume the same. The thought made him laugh out loud, the eerie sound of his own voice bouncing off the walls and causing him to shrink back, disturbed, into the more accustomed silence which filled his days.

Afraid that his memory might become affected by the tedious sameness of each long, dreadful day, Blair had begun to make a tally of the length of his captivity by using the edge of one of the links of chain to scratch a faint mark on the wall, each one representing one full day. Consequently, he was fully aware when the seventh day after James’ visit came and went with no sign of his expected visitor.

Another day passed, then another, and still the baron did not come.

After that Blair took to pleading for information about James’ whereabouts, despite the futility of trying to get his captors to acknowledge him at all. At last, nearly two weeks after he’d last seen James, Blair found himself begging pitifully, the desperate tone of his voice reflecting his deepest fear. “He’s not ill or hurt, is he? You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, if anything happened to him?”

To his surprise the woman – Maeve – lifted her head from her task and looked right at him, unmistakeable pity in her eyes. “Hush,” she bade him. “The baron is well. We would have heard if it were otherwise, I assure you.”

It was the first time he’d ever heard her voice, or even had her look at him. Blair’s eyes filled with tears, and he hugged his arms about himself where he stood, chained close to the wall. “Thank you,” he choked out, gratitude suffusing him at that one, small kindness.

When yet more days passed with no sign of the baron, other fears began to plague Blair. He’d rejected James’ attempt to settle his senses on Blair; had told him, in fact, that he would no longer consent to allow him to do so. Maybe James had decided there was no further point in coming to see him? Maybe this was how Blair’s life would be from now on – enduring day by tedious day in semi-darkness, never speaking or being spoken to, abandoned for good by the sentinel he’d once so joyfully joined his life to?

Another week passed, then another, and a deep melancholy fell upon Blair. He no longer dreamed of escape – such a thing was clearly impossible. Even if he did manage it, where would he go? The only place he truly wished to be was by the side of his sentinel, acting again as his true guide. And in any case Blair had experienced life on the run before, and he had no desire to do it again; especially when he’d be running from the very person he most wanted to run _to_.

Gradually Blair ceased all attempts to converse with Peter and Maeve, passively accepting their visits without comment or complaint. And throughout the endless, empty hours in-between he sat staring into darkness, resigned to the belief that there was no further point in struggling against fate. He’d been cast aside, his own beloved sentinel preferring to believe him mad rather than see the fae for what they were. The night terrors would grow and thrive, and would one day kill their children’s children, just as Rowena had prophesied. And long before that day came, Blair would die alone and forsaken in the darkness - and there was absolutely nothing that he could do about _any_ of it.

***

Though exhausted from his long journey back from the capital, James sought out Simon before heading off to bed, wishing both to apprise him of what had transpired and catch up with news from nearer home.

“I’m glad to see you, my lord,” Simon said a short while later, as the two of them sat in Simon’s office, partaking of a glass of good wine. “You have been missed this past month.”

James took a sip of wine. “I trust you coped?”

Simon inclined his head. “There were a few issues which will require your input. But apart from that, most matters were routine.”

“Good.” James took another sip, relaxing back in his chair and crossing his feet at the ankles as he leaned back. “Please let it be known that I will sit in council the day after tomorrow. I have… other business to attend to before then.”

“I received a letter from Peter,” Simon said, correctly guessing James’ priority. “Blair is in good health, though he has been asking for you.”

James’ attitude of relaxation faded as he sat forward, running a tired hand over his face. “He’s been left alone, without word, for too long,” he said regretfully. “It pains me to think that Blair’s likely been fretting all this time, wondering why I have not come to see him. Though,” he added, “if he’d been told what it was that kept me from him, I do not think it would have reassured him.”

“You could not have predicted that you would be obliged to attend an emergency baronial convocation,” Simon told him. “It was supposed to be a short trip, just to accompany your ward to the Sentinel School. The barons have not arranged an extraordinary meeting like that since your father’s time – it was sheer chance that this particular one coincided with your visit to the capital. The letter summoning you arrived here just two days after you left.”

“Chance had nothing to do with it, given the fact that my guide’s ‘heresy’ was the primary topic under discussion,” James said bitterly. “Baron Bannister heard that I’d enrolled Grace in the Sentinel School and would be in the capital to deliver her. He immediately sent word to the others via the Baronial Assessor, asking them to assemble there on a matter of grave importance, hoping to ambush me with the lack of prior warning.”

“So,” Simon asked carefully, clearly anticipating the worst. “What did the barons determine, with regard to Blair?”

James smiled – he was still relieved beyond measure at the verdict. “It was decided that there was already precedent for clemency, since it turned out that, in addition to her other maladies, Alicia Bannister is suffering from an almost identical delusion.” At Simon’s obvious incredulity, James added, “And yes, ironically, it was Baron Bannister himself who swung the vote in my favour. To push for Blair’s execution, despite that being the reason he called the meeting in the first place, would have meant that his own daughter would have been obliged to suffer the same fate.”

Simon smiled widely. “That is rather ironic, to be sure. I am sure his face was a picture when he voted against his own bill.”

“Indeed it was,” James confirmed. “As red as this very fine wine, in fact.” He saluted Simon with his glass, and downed the last drop. “The verdict,” James carried on, “was that as long as Blair remains where he can do no harm – Alicia, also – then no action will be taken. They are satisfied by my assurances that Blair is securely confined, and will remain so for as long as he suffers from his delusions.”

“Is this preoccupation with the night terrors something that Blair and Alicia cooked up together, do you think?” Simon asked curiously, after swallowing down his own wine. “A fantasy they indulged in, when Blair was acting as Alicia’s guide?”

James frowned. “I don’t know. Apart from the fact that both of them are raving in similar ways about the creatures, I would have said it was unlikely, given the toxic nature of their relationship. But their stories are too similar to assume it is chance. I would guess that it is not so much a story they both concocted, but more likely that Alicia imagined it first and, when Blair became ill, he remembered Alicia’s tale and fixated upon it.”

“That makes sense,” Simon agreed. But something in James’ expression must have alerted him to the baron’s disquiet. “But you are not sure, are you?”

James leaned over and snagged the decanter off the desk, before refilling both their glasses. “I encountered some disturbing things on my travels,” he admitted. “It seems that there are more than just Blair and Alicia who are suffering from this odd malady. In some villages there have been lynchings of people who decried the fae, and in the capital there is talk of those similarly afflicted going into hiding.”

Simon was appalled. “They have all spoken in similar ways about the fae?”

“Yes,” James confirmed.

“Maybe it is a disease,” Simon posited. “One which causes a sickness of the mind.”

“One which causes all those affected to espouse the same delusion?” James looked at the other man intently. “Simon, have you ever heard of such a thing?”

Simon, clearly, had not. “So what are you suggesting, my lord?” he asked. “That it may, indeed, be witchcraft?”

“Whatever it is,” James said firmly, “I do not believe Blair to be anything other than a victim. It is likely that those other poor souls were likewise deceived by some malicious influence.”

“But what could it be, my lord?” Simon looked honestly baffled. “What could possibly cause such warped thinking? I mean,” he laughed shortly, the idea clearly incomprehensible to him, “to compare such beautiful, benevolent creatures with a children’s’ nightmare tale. It makes no sense.”

“I don’t know,” James admitted. “But I assure you,” he drained his second goblet of wine and stood, preparing to take his leave, “if it will help Blair, I intend to find out.”

***

James rode out at first light, his urgent need to see Blair disturbing his sleep so that he was up and dressed long before sunrise. As he rode into the yard of the main house in the late morning, Peter strode out to meet him. “My lord,” Peter greeted, taking his reins as James dismounted.

“Good day,” James greeted politely. “Before I go to visit Blair, I’d be obliged if you and Maeve could apprise me of what has transpired since my last visit.”

Peter nodded agreement and, a short while later, the three of them gathered inside the house.

Maeve had the most to say, Peter - being rather taciturn by nature - deferring to his wife, as he often did. “He’s not well, my lord,” she said. “And may the fae forgive me, this confinement is not helping.”

James looked at her closely. “Has he spoken to you of his delusions?”

“No,” she said emphatically, “though, until he became completely silent, he spoke often – inconsequential matters and polite enquiries, more to break the silence than anything else, I think. But he has not tried to turn either Peter or myself against the fae. And we’ve obeyed your orders not to speak to him in turn. Though I must tell you, my lord, I think our silence is unnecessary cruelty, when the poor boy has been forsaken by you these past four weeks.”

Maeve had always possessed a sharp tongue where James was concerned – she had once been his mother’s handmaid, and had known him as an infant. As such, she sometimes seemed to forget he was now a grown man, and the baron to boot.

Likewise, James knew Maeve well. “You’re becoming fond of him,” he noted.

“It’s hard not to be,” Maeve allowed. She glanced at her husband. “We both are. The poor lad is bearing his confinement with dignity, but he seems so lost and haunted. And he has treated us with nothing other than quiet courtesy, despite the fact that we keep him chained up in that gloomy place.”

Those latter words, underlying the reality of his guide’s circumstances, made James squirm with something akin to shame. He loved Blair with all his heart – would give anything and everything he owned, in fact, to have the vibrant, intelligent young man he’d paired with back at his side. But Blair was no longer that man. Instead, he was beset by a crippling malady of the mind, and indicted by the Grand Council to remain confined and incommunicado, lest his madness infect others. As baron, James had responsibilities which extended way beyond the man he loved. No matter the fact that every breath he took without Blair filled him with a pain so deep and agonising he felt sometimes like he might die – he simply had no choice.

Still… some of the restrictions under which Blair was being held might, perhaps, be relaxed, if James deemed it safe to do so. His unforeseen, month-long absence had meant that, for a far longer period than he intended, Blair had been held in the same strict conditions James had first implemented, when all along he’d intended to gradually make Blair’s confinement more palatable.

“Is there anything else I need to know before I see him?” James asked.

“He’s not eating,” Maeve said bluntly. “Or he is, but hardly enough to keep a bird alive. More often than not his food is untouched when I go in to collect his dishes. Any more of this, and I will need to alter his clothes to fit, or have you send new ones.”

There was an edge of anger in the woman’s words which James easily perceived. “Maeve,” he asked bluntly. “What would you have me do?”

“Allow us to talk to him,” she answered; equally blunt. “Both Peter and I are entirely unlikely to be swayed by anything he might say. Keep your promises, and visit regularly. Give him things to do. If you can find a way, allow him out into the fresh air and sunlight from time to time.”

The words stung, James own self-inflicted wounds reopened under Maeve’s observations. For a vigorous and intelligent man like Blair, to be locked up and ignored for so long must have felt like torture. James had wished, every moment he’d spent at the whim of the other barons in the capital, to reassure him that things would improve. But he’d been afraid to get a letter out to Peter and Maeve, in case Baron Bannister’s agents intercepted it and thus discovered Blair’s location – he did not trust the man one whit, and knew him fully capable of doing Blair direct harm if he could not get the Grand Council to do the deed for him.

James could alternately, of course, have asked Simon to visit Blair during his absence, but he’d likewise been afraid that Simon might inadvertently lead someone to his guide who bore him ill will. Feelings in the town about heresy were currently running high, and as such keeping Blair’s location a closely-guarded secret even in his _own_ barony was imperative.

At least, as a sentinel, James had an advantage when it came to ensuring he was not followed – something that Simon could never be sure of. Yet in being so cautious, it seemed, he’d caused other problems for his guide. There was nothing for it but to begin to put those things right, in the hope that, one day, Blair might recover his wits and forgive James for incarcerating him in this way.

“I will go to see him,” James said at length, after the pointed silence became oppressive. “I will judge whether it will be safe to relax some of the restrictions that are in place.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Maeve said. “That’s all I can ask.”

***

James heart was pounding with urgent anticipation by the time Peter escorted him to the door of Blair’s circular prison. He kept a firm grasp on his senses, despite an almost overwhelming desire to quest them forward and seek out Blair’s essence. His guide had forbidden him to find solace through their link while he was confined and helpless. James resolved to remain strong on that issue, unless Blair changed his mind and offered himself willingly, hoping to eventually gain back Blair’s trust by respecting his refusal.

Peter made as if to move towards the mechanism which tightened the chain, but James stopped him. “That won’t be necessary,” he said. “I am in no danger from Blair.” Acceding to James’ order without a word, Peter produced the key he carried at his belt and unlocked the door.

Inside, it took a moment even for sentinel eyes to pierce the gloom. It was a grey day, and the daylight which illuminated the space directly opposite the door was muted. James moved inside, and the door closed behind him with a resounding bang. Sentinel vision kicked in, and James gasped out loud at what he saw.

Blair was standing by the wall, right beside the bracket which fed the chain through the wall to the mechanism outside. He was barely recognisable as the man James knew – frighteningly gaunt, with haunted, desolate eyes. With a full beard obscuring the familiar, beloved features, Blair looked an eternity older than the young man he truly was.

James took a shocked step towards him, and Blair turned to meet his eyes. In a second Blair’s initial expression of resigned misery transformed into something far harder, which pierced James right through to the heart.

Blair didn’t speak, so James broke the silence. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I never meant for you to be left alone so long.”

At that, Blair’s angry expression changed again, this time to misery. “First I was afraid you might be dead,” he whispered, his voice cracked from disuse. “Then I began to think you’d abandoned me here to die.”

“No. Oh, no.” James moved forward, propelled by Blair’s despair. He wrapped his arms around Blair and pulled him close. In his arms, Blair stood stiffly, not returning his embrace, but James didn’t really expect him to. Into Blair’s ear, he murmured. “I had business in the capital, which kept me there longer than planned. Had I known I would be delayed, I would have made sure to tell you so. But as things stood it was too dangerous to try to get a message to you.”

Blair pushed him away at that. “What do you mean, too dangerous?” It seemed that weeks of solitary confinement had not dampened down his intellect – delusional or not. “What has happened?”

James reluctantly decided, despite his original intention to keep knowledge of such matters from Blair so as not to distress him, that the truth might perhaps make it easier for him to accept the need for his continued confinement. “News of your illness reached the other barons,” he confessed. “I was summoned to a Grand Council – they do not approve of one of their number being paired with a heretic. They fear your influence, both on me and on others. I was afraid to send you a message, in case the courier was followed. Emotions are running high, and your life may be in danger if the wrong person were to discover your location.”

“Is that what they’re calling it?” Blair demanded. “Heresy? James,” he said, “the concept of heresy died out centuries ago, along with belief in the old gods.” He looked away, seemingly speaking his thoughts aloud as much as addressing James. “I suppose it’s to be expected that one effect of the night terrors’ influence will be to bring established patterns of thought to the fore, as an understandable framework for rationalising the deception they perpetuate…” Blair trailed off, catching James’ disappointed and disapproving expression. “If you expected that locking me up like this would make me change my mind about the fae,” he said bluntly, “you were wrong.”

“So I see.” James felt inexpressively sad. In his heart of hearts, he’d hoped more than anything that he’d find Blair well again. It seemed, though, that he was as mired in his delusion as ever. Worse than that, the time spent alone with nothing to distract him seemed to have resulted in him inventing even more elaborate rationalisations for his belief.

“So what did they decide?” Blair asked. “The barons, I mean.”

Now it had come to it, James wished he’d never spoken. “They have ordered that you be kept confined and isolated,” he said, “for as long as you adhere to your heretical delusions.”

“Oh.” Blair nodded, swallowing. “I see.” It seemed that he’d, likewise, had hopes of this visit, and now they’d been dashed. He glanced around the darkened cell, a slightly sardonic smile on his face, his eyes apparently long-since having adjusted to the gloom. “In that case,” he said, “welcome to my humble abode. As you can see, no expense has been spared in ensuring my comfort. My chain is made of the finest metal, and what self-respecting lunatic requires daylight, anyway?”

“Blair,” James protested, hating every moment of this; hurting so much for Blair; longing with everything he was for his guide to be the same young man he’d fallen in love with. “Please-”

“Please, what?” Blair cut him off, his anger obviously returned to the fore. “Stop being angry with you for doing this to me? Stop knowing the truth? Stop wishing that you’d come to your senses, and see the fae for what they are?”

James turned his back on Blair, trying desperately to accommodate his shifting emotions. Part of him wished to flee and never look back, another part longed to provide comfort which he was certain would be rebuffed, and yet another traitorous voice within urged him to shake Blair until his teeth rattled. He stood, breathing heavily with hands clenched into fists, beaten down by his desperate need and love for Blair, his guilt for having to take this stand, and intense pity for his guide who was destined to remain locked in this dismal place for perhaps the rest of his life.

After an endless moment of torturous indecision, not knowing whether to stay or to go, James felt hands flutter over his shoulders, then grip him decisively, surprising in their strength. “I’m sorry,” he heard Blair whisper. “I don’t want to fight with you, James. I know this isn’t your fault.” Blair laughed, a horrible, choked parody of humour. “I never would have admitted it four weeks ago, but I’m really glad you’re here.” His voice broke. “I was really scared I’d never see you again.”

Broken from his stasis, James turned. And this time when he took Blair into his arms, there was no resistance, and he was held back just as tightly.

***

For Blair, being held in James’ arms like this after an eternity in the silent darkness, was so overwhelmingly wonderful that if he’d been able, he’d have told James anything he wanted to hear. That he revered the fae, that the night terrors were just the story James believed them to be. He’d have given _anything_ , at that moment, to have things back as they were, before this madness had overtaken the world.

But of course, it would all be a lie. And, sentinel as he was, James would perceive it. He would look at Blair with disappointment and walk away, perhaps never to return.

The thought made Blair hold James fiercely.

“Hush,” James murmured to him, one hand stirring Blair’s hair comfortingly while the other held him close. “Blair, I love you. Be easy.”

“Don’t leave me here,” Blair ground out, feeling broken by James’ tenderness in the midst of this nightmare. “Please!”

“Not yet,” James assured him, clearly not bothering to deny what they both already knew – that Blair would not be leaving this place, no matter how hard he pleaded to do so. “I’m not going yet. Hush.”

Gradually, in the circle of his sentinel’s arms, Blair’s panic quieted

They moved apart finally. Blair felt James hand touch his face, stirring the hated beard which grew there. “Do you wish to shave?” James asked.

Blair nodded his head fervently. “Yes,” he said.

“Come,” James told him, taking Blair by the hand. “Sit down.”

Blair found himself led towards the chair by the fire, the chain at his ankle jingling as he moved, and urged to sit. A moment later, a quilt from the bed was tucked around his knees as though he was an invalid.

Dazed – trembling a little with emotion, which was perhaps why James had covered him with the quilt – Blair watched as James moved over to the door, and banged upon it thrice. The door opened, and James spoke quietly to Peter in an undertone. Then, leaving the door ajar, James moved around the room lighting candles, illuminating the gloom which persisted despite the half-open door. Finally he rekindled the fire, which Blair had not bothered to tend since Peter had set it this morning.

By the time James was done Peter had returned, and Maeve with him. James met them at the door and, taking several trips, relieved them of their burdens. A bowl of warm water, steam rising into the cool air; soft towels, and tray bearing soap, scissors, a straight razor and a small shaving mirror.

James set the bowl and the tray on the table beside Blair. He reached out again, and touched Blair’s beard. “This will need to be trimmed before you can shave,” he said. “Would you like me to help you?”

Blair nodded. “Please,” he said. He did not think his hand was steady enough, anyway; plus he felt oddly reluctant to look at himself in the mirror, as he must if he were to do this himself. He was terribly afraid of what he’d find staring back at him.

To his relief, James did not make a big thing out of it. After wrapping a towel about Blair’s shoulders he picked up the scissors, and commenced snipping away weeks of beard growth, the wiry strands falling on Blair’s lap.

It was over quickly, James’ sentinel-fingers deft and sure at their task. Next, James picked up the soap and, after a questioning glance at Blair, soaped up his hands in the water and smeared the resulting foam on Blair’s face.

Trusting James far more than he would have trusted his own uncertain hands, Blair leaned back, baring his throat to his sentinel as James skilfully shaved him, the fearsomely sharp razor moving over Blair’s face in long, sure strokes. He sighed, relaxing into James’ hands as he allowed his head to be turned this way and that. And the feeling of being scrutinised in such an intimate way, after weeks of having no one look at him at all, made his heart pound a little faster.

All too soon, it was done. After wetting a washcloth, James wiped away the soapy residue and stray whiskers from Blair’s face. His fingers lingered lovingly on Blair’s smooth cheek afterwards, his eyes soft and adoring. And Blair felt a conflict of grief and love for him so profound he could not have uttered a word if his life depended on it.

As if in a dream Blair sat docile, watching as James moved away and over to the chest which held Blair’s clothes. The baron lifted the lid and rummaged deep within, coming out with Blair’s outdoor cloak – which he had not worn all the time he’d been here. Then, after laying the cloak on the bed and coming back over, James crouched down in front of Blair, a key in his hand.

Blair felt his ankle grasped, and the manacle which enclosed it came apart suddenly. Blair gasped, his heart pounding. Surely James was not setting him free?

As if he’d heard the question, James met his eyes, still crouched at Blair’s feet. “Give me your word,” he said in a serious tone, “that you will not try to run. I cannot guarantee your safety if you do.”

“I swear,” Blair promised hoarsely.

“Good.” James stood, and gave a hand to Blair, hauling him to his feet. Blair felt himself wrapped in his cloak, then James took his hand once more and led him towards the door.

Blair balked on the threshold, the daylight outside, grey though the day was, blinding to a man who’d spent weeks in semi-darkness. He closed his watering eyes and felt himself steered decisively out, the lack of the accustomed weight on his leg causing him to shamble in an uneven gait. He felt wind on his face, and smelled the shockingly-vivid freshness of cut grass and wet soil.

“Here’s the food you asked for, my lord,” he heard Maeve say.

Blair opened his eyes, blinking furiously as the outside world came into focus. Maeve had prepared a picnic, it seemed, which James now carried in a bag hooked over his shoulder. “Thank you,” James was bidding the woman. Then Blair was urged to move across the yard, over to where two horses stood.

He needed help to mount, so stiff and ungainly he was after his long absence from the saddle. Once they were both ready to go, James kicked with his heels without looking back, trusting Blair to follow.

Blair, of course, did.

***

They took their repast high on the moors, sitting on a blanket and leaning back against a rock as their horses grazed nearby. The sky was gradually clearing, with patches of blue showing amidst the cloud, and autumn sunlight peeking through at intervals to bathe them both in its warmth. There was a slight breeze – it would be a little chilly for a picnic if these were normal circumstances. But Blair didn’t care about that at all.

It was like a dream. Every moment he sat there Blair expected to wake to darkness, the cold weight of chain pulling at his leg. But no matter how often he blinked, the daylight remained, and James was still beside him, the comforting warmth of his body close against Blair’s side. Yet all the time Blair was aware that this was nothing more than a temporary respite – the spectre of his cell loomed constantly, taunting him with the awful inevitability of confinement.

They ate the food which Maeve had provided; delicious cold-cuts of meat and fresh crusty bread, followed up by fruit and cheese. There was a flask of ale, as well as fresh spring water to drink. Blair found that, in the outdoors and in James’ company, he had at last rediscovered some of the appetite which had long deserted him, though he did not manage to consume half as much as James.

At last, once they had eaten, Blair found his voice. “How does Grace fare, now that I’m gone?” he asked.

James’ face clouded a little. “She had some difficulty adjusting,” he admitted. “She missed you a lot.”

Blair’s heart skipped a beat. “You said ‘missed’.”

James hastened to reassure him. “No, don’t worry, she is quite well. But,” he sighed resignedly, “I decided, after much discussion with Megan, that it would be better for her to go to the Sentinel School in the capital, rather than remain in the castle with no one to guide her. It was while I was escorting her there that the Grand Council met.”

“Oh.” Blair blinked in surprise. “I thought you disapproved of the Sentinel School’s methods.”

James was obviously choosing his words carefully. “Grace needed more supervision than anyone in the barony could provide her with,” he said. “In your absence, there was no other option.”

The underlying message was clear to Blair – Grace had taken his banishment badly, and since enrolment in the Sentinel School was usually a long-term commitment, it was not envisaged that Blair would ever be in a position to teach her again. “Did Megan go with her?” he asked, trying to push to one side his sadness at one more, irrevocable loss.

“Yes. She and Rafe have gone to live in the capital. The School has been instructed that Grace must see them whenever she wishes. I will not have her separated from her family.”

 _You separated her from me_ , Blair couldn’t help but think resentfully. But he didn’t say it. Instead, he asked, “How did Grace take the move?”

“She was reluctant at first,” James confessed. “But once she got there, and saw her room, and met some of the other students – well, when I left she’d been at the school three weeks, and had enjoyed every moment of it.”

“I’m glad,” Blair said sincerely. Though the cracked pain of grief he always carried with him now increased a little bit more at the news that it was unlikely he’d ever again be her tutor.

“Blair,” James said presently, after a few moments of silence. “It would please me greatly to be able to allow you more freedom than of late. To allow you to take conversation with Peter and Maeve, for example, so that you do not feel quite so alone. And for you to accompany me on rides, like this one, when I visit – which, duty permitting, I will try to do at least once a fortnight; more frequently if my commitments allow. It should be safe for us to be abroad out here, so far from any other habitation – it is unlikely we will be seen and recognised. But there are some stipulations I must make, and promises I will need you to consent to, before I decide what I will allow.”

“I must not talk to Peter and Maeve about the night terrors, correct?” Blair guessed. “And I must not try to escape.”

“Yes,” James confirmed. “Do I have your promise?”

“Are you going to read me with your senses?” Blair challenged.

A look of pain crossed James’ face. “No,” he said. “Your word will suffice. I know you to be an honourable man, despite your infirmity.”

Blair almost laughed at that – ‘infirmity’ made him sound like an aging invalid. Then the humour faded. Given his inability to do something as simple and familiar as shaving himself earlier, perhaps it was not far off the mark.

Still, more freedom was most definitely to be desired. It might be possible for Blair to find some way to convince James of the truth, if he could only get his head on straight – his long sojourn in the dark the past few weeks, and his simultaneous fear that James had cast him off, seemed to have addled his wits more than a little, focusing him far too much on his own misery rather than the matter at hand. It was far easier to see that now, out here in the clear light of day, than while chained up in the blackness of his cell.

Thus decided, Blair gave his answer. “I give you my word,” he said sincerely. “I will never mention the night terrors to Peter and Maeve. And I will not try to run away.”

“I am very serious about these conditions Blair,” James reiterated. “If you were to find your way free, and if people were to discover your identity, you would most likely be killed. The heresy you speak is dangerous. In some places others, like you - similarly afflicted with a sickness of the mind which has turned them against the fae - have been summarily put to death. I don’t…” James’ voice cracked. “I _can’t_ let that happen to you. And as for your silence, it is one of the conditions the Grand Council laid down. You cannot be permitted to spread your heresy to others. Peter and Maeve are good people who worship the fae. I will not stand for you upsetting them in that way.”

Considering the tale Rowena had told him about her great grandmother, Blair was not entirely unsurprised by what James told him, but he _was_ dismayed at how ingrained ill-feeling against those with the Sight had apparently become. “I understand,” he said. “I told you, James. You have my promise.”

“Then we shall speak of it no more,” James said. “And now,” he stood. “It is time to go back.”

Blair’s heart sank. But understanding that it was inevitable nevertheless, he rose and made ready to go.

But the whole ride back he looked around him with starving eyes, memorising the landscape and the sky and the sunlight as if it was the last time he’d ever see them, feeling as if he was going to his execution.

***

For Blair, things improved a little after James’ latest visit. Though Peter more often than not didn’t speak – which Blair soon came to learn to be a natural facet of his personality – Maeve transformed from the silent jailor she’d been into a motherly chatterbox, who seemed obliged, once the interdict on conversation was lifted, to make up for lost time. Consequently Blair was regaled at every visit with a flood of babble which even he, with his considerable conversational abilities, could not match.

Blair was still kept chained, but he was no longer winched against the wall when they entered. He’d not realised the depth of his loathing for that particular facet of his captivity until it ceased, though he still eyed the chain warily, not entirely trusting that it was truly over. Desperately wishing for it never to happen again he made a point of keeping his distance from both of his jailers whenever they came into his cell, and he constantly treated them with extreme courtesy, hoping that by doing so they would never feel threatened enough by their captive to reintroduce that particular indignity.

Another improvement to his lot was that the door to his cell was kept open for longer intervals, allowing a modicum of daylight to enter even when Peter and Maeve were not bustling around inside. At those times, unimpeded from doing so, Blair would sometimes sit as close to the open doorway as the length of chain would allow, breathing in the fresh air; feeling the coolness of wind, the wet spray from rain bouncing off the cobbles or the warmth of the wintery sun on his face. It didn’t matter to him at all that the warmth which had built up from the ever-present fire would usually dissipate through the opening.

James kept his promise to visit again, coming back on the next occasion just five days afterwards. He brought with him a package of books – once again carefully handpicked to ensure there was nothing in them that might allude to the night terrors. Blair was grateful, nevertheless, for the distraction they provided - the worst aspect of his confinement now, he’d decided, was the unrelieved boredom which constantly plagued him.

James brought other things also. “Simon sent these to you,” he said, handing over a large bundle. “Parchments, pens, ink and other essentials.”

Blair unrolled the cloth-wrapped parcel and eyed his treasures eagerly. But shortly afterwards he gladly put them on one side, in readiness for their promised ride out into the countryside.

One thing that did not change was his access to a razor. Blair hated the fact that he was, seemingly, only allowed to shave when James was present and could supervise. So the next time that James visited, Blair made his case. “You can test me with your senses, James, if you like. You’ll know that way whether I truly mean any harm to myself or to anyone else.” He fixed his most pleading look on the baron.

But James shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know how much you hate to remain whiskered. But I cannot, in all good faith, allow you access to such a dangerous tool when I am not here.”

The refusal once again underlined the reality of Blair’s situation – James believed him mad, and as such would go so far and no further in making his captivity more palatable. Nursing intense resentment and despair, Blair let it go, knowing that fighting over the issue would gain him nothing.

Now that James had become a regular visitor, and their interaction had progressed beyond mere verbal sparring brought on by Blair’s anger and resentment, Blair tried hard to find ways to convince him of the truth. It was a difficult task though – the baron was a canny man, and constantly on his guard against such attempts.

As they walked out on the moors, more than a hint of winter in the air during these shorter days, Blair tried to attack the issue in a roundabout way. “So, apart from the recent meeting, the Grand Council had never met in emergency convocation since before you became baron?”

“No,” James confirmed. “They last met when my father was still alive, to formulate a plan to repel the invaders from the east. The result of that was the establishment of the Five Baronies Border Guard to defend the pass. I fought there myself for a time, with Simon at my side. It’s been scaled down now, of course; the barbarian tribes are no longer so much of a threat.”

“Don’t you think it’s strange,” Blair mused, “that the Council never met last summer?”

“What do you mean?” James asked.

“Well,” Blair said carefully, “when you look at how many people were killed, I would have thought that a Grand Council was warranted. Every baron was dealing with the same common threat, after all.”

James looked puzzled for a moment. “Even if we’d met, how could the barons have fought a plague?” he said. “Such things are not easily dealt with by a council of war.”

“But plague _can_ be fought,” Blair insisted. “There could have been a meeting of barons to exchange knowledge. If it was a plague, then every barony has those within it who know how to treat such things. Apothecaries, people versed in the uses of medicines. That information could have been shared, for the common good. Do the Council only ever meet to discuss war?”

“No, they have met in the past to discuss other matters of import, too, when the need arises.” James was frowning. “I suppose, since the plague died away by itself, that none of us saw the point of holding a meeting.”

Blair let the matter drop at that, content to have sowed perhaps the smallest doubt in James’ mind. And of course _he_ knew why the barons had never met at that time – James had attempted to send a summons out to his counterparts, but the night terrors had made the roads too dangerous to travel upon so a Grand Council had never been convened.

Blair would have been content to carry on his secret war of attrition, gradually forcing James to question the reality he perceived in the hope that, over time, he could be brought to see things as they really were. But matters after that soon came to a head of their own accord, and everything changed for the worse.

***

“My lord,” Physician Wolf was saying forcefully. “You must swallow your pride on this matter. Blair is your _guide_. You have a deep link with him and, if you refuse to draw on that link, your own health will continue to suffer.”

“I will not use him in that way,” James reiterated again, his head pounding despite the sour-tasting brew the physician had made him swallow to alleviate it. “Our pairing is based on mutual respect and equality. While he is indisposed, I will not take advantage of him.”

“Then you are helping neither him, nor yourself,” Wolf said bluntly. “If you carry on like this you will become as mad as your guide, simply due to the pain your senses cause you.”

“I managed fine before I paired with him,” James insisted petulantly. “I can manage now as well.”

“I will say this once more, in the perhaps futile hope that you will understand it,” Wolf said testily. “You have a _deep link_ with Blair. You did not have that _before_ you paired with Blair, which is why you functioned well, for the most part, without a guide. A deep link strips away some of your defences, allowing you to communicate without words. The drawback is that it leaves you vulnerable, if your guide is not there to fill the gap. You _need_ your guide, or this will never go away.”

“There has to be another way,” James said. “Maybe I could send to the Academy, and ask them to send me a temporary guide.”

“The Academy are unlikely to help,” Simon, who’d been standing by worriedly, put in. “You are already paired, my lord. While your guide lives, they will hardly supply you with another.”

“Then what should I do?” James said despairingly. He looked at his physician. “I will need you to find something for me to take. Something that will suppress my senses.”

Wolf looked supremely unhappy. “This is not my area of expertise,” he said. “Battle wounds I can deal with. Infections, fevers, all of these are my skill. But suppressing your senses?” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“What about a hedge-guide?” James asked, remembering something Blair had said to him once. “There is a woman in the town.” James shook his head. “I’ve forgotten her name.”

“Rowena,” Wolf said shortly. “She’s a midwife. Calls herself an apothecary, and fortune teller too.” He shrugged. “It’s rumoured she has some training as a guide. You could do worse, I suppose, than ask her for help. Though I have my doubts about her credentials.”

James looked at Simon. “Find her,” he ordered. “Ask her to come.”

Simon bowed his head. “Yes my lord.”

Lying back on the bed and closing his eyes, James prayed to the fae that the painkilling drug would start to work soon, and that the pounding in his head would cease.

***

Disturbed from a deep sleep and opening his eyes to almost total darkness, Blair had no idea how far advanced the night was, or what had woken him. Yet he was suddenly wide awake, his heart pounding and a sense of dread consuming him.

Lying still, Blair listened. As usual he could hear very little other than the wind whistling through the tiny window – the walls of this chamber were several feet thick, and the small opening high up the wall usually allowed in only the loudest sounds from outside, yet all seemed quiet.

Then he heard it - a sound within the cell itself. A faint scratching sound; an almost inaudible scrabbling.

Hoping against hope that the source was merely something innocuous, such as a family of mice seeking shelter from the encroaching winter weather, Blair slipped soundlessly out of bed and crept towards the fireplace. The fire had died down to embers, casting little light, but there was flame enough to allow him to light a taper from it. Taking a deep breath, Blair picked up a candle, and touched the lit taper to the wick.

The circle of light cast by the candle revealed nothing out of its place. Until, that was, Blair held it aloft, and looked up.

The entire ceiling of his chamber was covered by a shifting cloud of darkness. Every so often bits of it broke away and reformed, the whoosh and flap of tiny wings, which he’d first mistaken for the sound of wind, coming from right over his head.

“No,” Blair whispered, frozen to the spot with horror.

The next moment he dove for cover, the chain forcing him to perilous slowness as the whole flock of fae swooped single-mindedly towards him, knocking the candle out of his hand and extinguishing the light.

***

A knock at the baron’s chamber door roused him from a fitful doze. “My lord,” he heard Simon say. “I’ve brought the woman, Madam Rowena, as you requested.”

James opened his eyes, casting away the damp washcloth which covered them. The woman beside Simon looked familiar – she’d been at the castle before… when? For a moment, James almost grasped the memory. His hall, full of people, a sense of ever-present danger, children crying...

Then it was just… gone.

Dismissing the odd thought – perhaps the tail-end of a dream since he’d been dozing – James stood to meet his visitor. “Madam,” he greeted. “Thank you for coming.”

Rowena’s expression was disturbingly direct. “Glad to be of service, my lord,” she said.

James thanked Simon, who exited unobtrusively, and then solicitously led the lady to a chair by the fire – the night was cold, and she was not a young woman. “Can I get you some refreshments?” he asked. “Some heated wine, perhaps?”

“I’d rather get down to business,” she told him, setting the bag she carried down beside her chair as James took the seat opposite. “My lord seneschal told me very little, except that you were in need of guidance from one who knows about such things.”

“People say that you have some training as a guide,” he prompted. “Is that true?”

“Yes,” she acknowledged shortly.

When no further information was forthcoming, James got to the point. “I need something to help me control my senses. Something which will suppress them so that I can avoid over-extension. I cannot fulfil my duties as baron, plagued by headaches and sensory spikes as I am.”

“What of your own guide, my lord?” she asked. “Surely if you spend time focusing your senses on him, your problems will disappear.”

“That is not an option,” James said. He had no intention of elaborating why.

The finality of his statement must have communicated itself. “Then I will give you what help I can,” Rowena said. And as she rummaged in her bag, looking for what she would need, James could not help wondering why she sounded so sad - after all, he intended to pay her well for her services.

***

Blair flailed his arms above his head, frantically trying to fend away the things dive-bombing him in the darkness. One of them got tangled in his hair, its claws bright needles of pain in his scalp. Furiously he wrested it free, then raised both hands reflexively to protect his eyes when two or three of its fellows swooped far too close, their wings brushing his face. As he backed up, the back of his knees bumped something hard – the bed, he realised. Not knowing what else to do, with the things flapping around his head and bumping repeatedly against his back and shoulders, he quickly knelt down and lay flat, rolling himself hastily under the bed, the chain at his ankle rattling all the while.

Crammed tight into in the space under the bed and unable to see a thing in the blackness, Blair lay still for a moment, breathing hard. Then he cried out in horror when he felt the unmistakeable sensation of claws hooked in his pants leg, pricking right through to his skin. Kicking out he managed to dislodge his tiny attacker, only to have it replaced by another, and yet another. Squirming furiously he brought his hands into play, wresting the things off and flinging them back out into the room.

Then one he seized dug its claws into his hand, red-hot pinpricks of stinging agony erupting right up his arm. Razor-sharp teeth sunk simultaneously into the flesh between his first finger and thumb, the thing clamped on in an agonising death-grip. Worse was to come – the thing began to chew, as though it would bite a chunk right out of Blair’s hand. In mindless panic, Blair pounded it hard over and over into the stone floor, not stopping until the creature went limp and released its hold.

The assault halted after that, although Blair could still hear them all around him, their claws skittering across the floor and the whoosh of their wings forcing him to remain on high alert. Afraid they would go for his feet – he was still barefoot straight from the bed – he tucked his legs up as far as he could in the limited space available, curling on his side into a self-protective ball with his wounded hand cradled, throbbing and wet with blood, against his chest.

His respite was destined to be short-lived.

***

Whatever had been in the potion which Madam Rowena had given him to drink seemed to have helped. James slept well and rose refreshed for the first time in months, and the ever-present headache which plagued him was muted and tolerable. The woman had promised to return, should he have need of her again, which caused the sentinel no end of relief.

Part of his good cheer that morning was due to his improved health, but the rest of it was rooted in the fact that he would ride to see Blair today.

James’ visits to see his guide were still bitter-sweet occasions. He prayed fervently to the fae, every time he made the journey, to see some evidence of improvement, and for Blair to somehow magically have regained his reason in the days since their last meeting. Yet it was never the case – Blair always seemed as mired in delusion as ever. Yet despite that ever-present disappointment James looked forward to seeing him, nevertheless. He began to plan how the day would go; first he would ensure Blair’s comfort by allowing him to shave, and afterward they would ride out on the moor to eat together under the open sky, taking simple pleasure in each other’s company.

As he rode, James made no attempt to extend his senses, and was pleased to note that they stayed under control, the unpredictable flarings of ability he’d become prone to lately nowhere in evidence. The hedge-guide, it seemed, truly knew her business. He breathed deeply of the fresh air, feeling optimistic for the first time in ages. The situation was far from ideal, yet perhaps both he and Blair were beginning to find an accommodation with it which was possible to endure. And that, he decided, was most definitely an improvement in itself.

James had set off early, so it was well before noon when he rode into the yard at the estate house, his horse’s hooves clattering loudly on the cobbles. To his surprise the door to Blair’s stone chamber – which was kept open more often than not of late – was closed, and there was no sign of either Peter or Maeve.

It was not until he’d begin to stable his horse himself that Peter appeared. “You’d best talk to my wife,” the man said as he moved in to take over James’ task. “You’ll find her in the kitchen, my lord.” The grim set to his mouth confirmed James’ suspicion that something had gone terribly wrong, filling him with dread.

Damping down an almost irresistible urge to go straight to Blair, James made his way into the house, his steps leaden. He found Maeve sitting stiff-lipped and dry-eyed at the kitchen table. As he entered, she turned her accusing, devastated gaze upon him. “Up until now, I believed him simply to be the poor, sick boy you told me he was. But not any longer.”

“What do you mean?”

Maeve cast grieving eyes towards the door which led to the private parlour she and Peter had taken for their use in this big house. “Look in there, my lord,” she said.

Filled with a sense of impending doom, James did as she asked.

The room was dim, the curtains drawn. Four candles had been set and lit on a table placed in the centre of the room, one at each corner of a small, ornate box which James vaguely recognised as having once been in his mother’s possession – a treasured heirloom, which had been gifted to her handmaid when the baroness passed on.

Drawn like a moth to the flames, James moved forward to look within.

The box had been lined with soft, rich fabric. And lying within it, almost unrecognisable since the features had been so badly damaged, was a fae. It was dead; no doubt about that, its tattered, broken wings straightened carefully, the blood which must have covered its poor, abused body washed away by Maeve as lovingly as if it had been a member of her own family. Grief consumed James at the sight – such a precious being; an irreplaceable member of the magical race which protected them all. Its loss was a tragedy of epic proportions.

His grief twisting inside like a live thing, James stepped away and back into the kitchen. Sitting down, he took Maeve by the hand. “Tell me what happened,” he urged softly.

“When we went in, Blair was raving,” she said, her eyes brimming but stubbornly refusing to spill over. “About the fae, calling them all manner of awful names, cursing them…” She shook her head. “Such terrible things, my lord, I cannot repeat them.”

“Go on,” James urged.

“Peter was forced to use the winch,” she said. “We were afraid of what he might do otherwise. He’d…” she squeezed James’ hand, “he’d already hurt himself, my lord. Scratched his own flesh, made himself bleed. There was no telling what he might do to us.”

“Blair would never hurt you,” James soothed; though the certainty he usually felt at that assertion had somehow deserted him.

“You were not there, my lord,” she retorted angrily. “You did not see how wild he was, or hear the things he babbled. And it turned out we had good reason to be afraid.”

Swallowing down the emotions which threatened to overpower him, because this was most _definitely_ not the time to indulge himself in any kind of weakness, James prompted, “What happened, Maeve?”

“I found it when I was sweeping,” she said. “The poor little thing was concealed under his bed. It must have got in during the night, separated from the flock and seeking shelter from the rain.” Her eyes overflowed at last. “Its poor little broken body – he admitted to its murder, my lord. He expressed no remorse. He said he pounded it into the floor, not stopping until it was dead. He claimed it bit him before that, but what else could the poor little thing do? What other defence could it possibly have against a grown man, determined to destroy something of such fragile beauty?”

A fierce anger had been growing in James as Maeve spoke. Love of the fae was firmly lodged in their hearts and minds, every good thing that happened granted by their bounty. James’ heart ached for the beautiful little being, so brutally deprived of life. Such a callous slaying of one of their little benefactors, defenceless and trusting, and simply seeking shelter with a human who should have protected it, filled him with a rage so intense he wanted to kill. He dreaded to think what repercussions such an evil act might herald for his people, in terms of the loss of the faes’ bounty, if swift retribution was not delivered and recompense made.

But another emotion warred with James’ rage: the deep protectiveness any sentinel felt for his paired guide. Blair, by rights, should die for what he’d done. Yet James did not think that he’d ever be able to permit that to happen, and remain sane himself.

There was only one other recourse. Blair must be punished, and James knew exactly how to do it, even if the thought of what he must do filled him with sorrow almost sufficient to overwhelm his desperate need to avenge the poor, murdered creature.

Almost.

***

Blair was still chained close to the wall where he’d been left. Sitting on the cold floor with his knees drawn up, and biting his lip against the pain of multiple scratches and the throb of the bite in his hand, he thought back over the events of the past few terrible hours.

After the initial attack, he’d remained under the bed for the rest of the night. Any attempt to venture out from underneath had been met with concerted flurries of claws and fangs, which mercilessly raked any bit of exposed flesh they could find. Unable to see in the darkness and therefore not easily in a position to defend himself, Blair had soon given up on any notion of moving from where he’d taken shelter.

Every so often, one or more of them would creep underneath into Blair’s sanctuary, the sensation of their claws latched into his clothing and pricking right through to his flesh a periodic, agonising torment. Blair was forced to remain vigilant, kicking and pulling them off as soon as he detected their presence. Thankfully they never came en-masse, seeming to prefer smaller forays. If it had been any different, Blair did not know how he would have dealt with it.

He tried several times, as the interminable night shifted towards morning, shouting for help, in case Peter was up and around in the dark hours before dawn. But it was to no avail – even if the old man was out there, the walls were so thick that it was unlikely Blair’s voice would reach him anyway.

Finally the moment Blair had been praying for came – he’d been moved to entreat even the old gods of his ancestors in his extremity. The sound of hundreds of tiny wings moving aloft filled his cell, then gradually dissipated as the flock of fae flew, one-by-one, out of the window. Blair remained where he was for a while longer, just to be sure that they had all gone, judging it safe to emerge only when the greyness of what passed for daylight in this dark cell began to lighten the interior.

After that he’d managed - using his one good hand, his teeth and sheer desperation - to tear strips from his bed sheet. By dipping it in the jug of cold water, which was usually left for him overnight, he did his best to clean the claw marks which covered all of his extremities, as well as his face and scalp. He made an attempt also to clean the ragged bite on his hand; though he expected it would need more attention than he, single-handedly and without adequate materials, could provide. After that he wrapped it in a clean strip of linen to stanch the blood which had begun to flow again. And he waited, desperately, for his jailers to arrive.

He must have dozed off, exhausted by the night’s events as he was, because when he came to it was to Maeve’s frantic screams. Apparently she’d seen him lying asleep on the bed and decided not to waken him, going about her morning tasks quietly while he remained there. And while sweeping under the bed she’d discovered the body of the night terror he’d killed, in his desperate attempt to stop it from gorging on his hand.

He’d tried to explain, both to Maeve and Peter, what had happened. That the night terrors had come upon him as he slept and attacked him, causing him to take cover under his bed for the entire night. That he’d been forced to kill that one, single creature in self-defence as it tried to eat his hand.

But they hadn’t listened. Instead, Peter had winched Blair to the wall brutally fast, so that he was forced to hop quickly after the retreating chain lest he fall over and be dragged. Following that, Peter and Maeve had tenderly picked up the body of the fae and carried it out, their faces lined with reverent grief. Neither of them had looked at him or acknowledged anything he said. And as they left they’d closed and locked the door behind them, leaving him in semi-darkness and abandoning their usual tasks - they’d not even remade the fire.

Blair’s stomach rumbled, and his head swam – he didn’t know whether that was because they had failed to bring him any food, or because the pain in his hand and a dozen other lacerations was making him feel faint. The chain had not been released, so Blair was forced to sit here on the cold floor, still winched tight against the wall.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the cell door opened, and Blair’s heart leapt when James stepped into his cell. Relieved beyond measure, Blair pushed himself painfully to his feet to greet him.

But hope died a stony death when he saw the expression on the baron’s face.

***

James couldn’t look at Blair. If he did, it would make what he had to do all the more painful so, instead, he took the coward’s way out and focused his gaze on a spot on the wall, high above Blair’s head. He could not afford to allow his weakness for this man to distract him from what he must do. He was baron. This was his responsibility.

James was aware of Blair getting to his feet. “James,” the man began. “I-”

The honeyed tones of the guide almost undid him, but James refused to listen. Instead, cold, hard anger came to the fore. “What you’ve done is a crime against all of us, human and fae both,” he said, stemming the flow of excuses which would no doubt ensue in the next moment if he did not put a stop to it. “If you were any other man, I would execute you for murder without a second thought.”

“James, please,” he heard Blair protest. “The night terrors attacked me! I had no choice-”

“You will address me,” James barked, “as ‘my lord’!”

Shocked silence resulted.

Into it, James pronounced sentence. “Because you are my truly-paired guide, I cannot put you to death without suffering consequences myself. Because of this – and this _only_ – I will grant you clemency. Instead, you will be confined here for the rest of your days. Those charged with your welfare will not speak to you, and you will refrain from speaking to them. Break this condition even once, and you will be muted.”

Out of the corner of his eye, James could see that Blair staggered and leaned against the wall, as if for support. Forcing himself not to show pity, James carried on. “You will never set foot outside this chamber again. You will never be unchained. The window will be blocked up, to ensure that no other unsuspecting fae wanders into your grasp.”

Finally James looked at Blair. A long, final look, taking in the ragged man’s appearance; bearded, scratched and barefoot, his long hair unkempt and his hand wrapped in a bloodied rag. And at last he saw the murderous lunatic he’d tried so hard not to see during all the weeks Blair had been confined here, instead of the rational man who lived in his memory.

Staring Blair right in the face, James said with finality, “I will not come here again.”

“What if you need me?” White faced, trembling and afraid though he was, clever, manipulative Blair played what he clearly believed to be his winning card. “You said it yourself. I’m your guide, my lord. Your senses are rooted in our pairing.”

But it was, of course, James who possessed the victorious hand. “I have engaged the services of a new guide,” he said. “She will provide what help I need from now on.”

The agony which resulted was plain to see. Blair closed his eyes, his face contorting as if he was mortally wounded. If James had truly been a vindictive man, he might have revelled in taking revenge for the poor, murdered fae in such a way. As it was, his rage at Blair’s brutal act was tempered by sorrow and an immense pity he could not manage to subdue; although he knew better than to show it.

Then Blair looked back at him accusingly, and at last there was fury in his eyes. “You told me this wasn’t punishment,” he said.

James turned, a treacherous part of him celebrating that, even brought to this, Blair was still unbroken; still willing to fight.

But that didn’t change a thing.

Pausing in the doorway, James looked over his shoulder and said softly, “It is now.”

Then he motioned to Peter to close the door and bar it.

***

For a long time afterwards, James felt oddly as though he’d died that day.

The business of the barony went on as usual, with James holding council each day, adjudicating petty disputes and meting out justice. But his evenings were filled with emptiness, the cosy little family he’d drawn about himself now scattered to the four winds. And despite believing strongly that Blair’s punishment was justified, he suffered from bouts of intense guilt at having sentenced his own guide to darkness and silence for the rest of his days.

The nights were the worst. His sleep – when he managed to get any – was filled with nightmare images. Fearsome creatures devouring him and those he loved; darkness and death spilling across the land. And worst of all one recurring dream, from which he awoke, time and time again, crying out and covered in sweat: Blair buried alive, screaming and crying in his coffin, scratching and pounding at the lid until his hands were reduced to bloody scraps of flesh and bone.

Not unsurprisingly, given that he had not had any real sleep for days, James found himself beset once more by sensory problems. The tiniest sound was amplified a thousand times, his head aching from the noise of it. His skin itched constantly, irritated by even the softest of fabrics. And his food tasted like dung, while dung smelled like venison.

At last, unable to stand it any longer, he summoned Madam Rowena. “I need you to give me some more herbs,” he said. “Something that will make my senses behave just like any common man’s.”

“Repeated use of those herbs can cause irreversible side-effects,” she told him. “Are you sure you can cope with that, my lord?”

“Anything,” James ground out between clenched teeth, the pain so bad that he could hardly see straight. His vision kept soaring out of his control, making the tiniest spider lurking high up on the ceiling seem like a monstrous behemoth. “I’ll cope with _anything_ , just so long as it stops this torture.”

“As you wish,” she acceded; then began to prepare her potion.

Presently a goblet appeared at James’ lips. “Drink,” the hedge-guide ordered. And, having no other recourse, James did as he was bid, draining the whole cup.

The relief was almost instantaneous. Sighing, James leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, the pain behind them receding to a tolerable, dull ache. The booming noise of footsteps in the castle corridors faded, and James felt his whole body relax as his clothes ceased, at long last, to itch and chafe. He was dimly aware of the hedge-guide’s voice, urging him to relax and focus inwards, to open his inner eye, to _see_ …

As his relaxation became more profound, his senses retreating and settling into tolerable bounds, James became aware of an unfamiliar sensation within. A strange tickling in his mind; a curious, beckoning thing. Intrigued, he followed the summons, and found himself standing in the courtyard, the sun low in the sky. Something caught his eye – a spider’s web fluttering in the breeze - and, fatigued from the intense stress of one more endless, hopeless day, he focused in on it, transfixed, losing himself in the shape, the colours…

The next thing he knew he was lying flat on his back, with Blair’s weight lying heavy atop him and the darkening sky above eclipsed by the guide’s face. “Keep still, my lord!” Blair told him urgently, wild, desperate eyes boring into James’. “I beg you!”

Then James watched in horror as a nightmare winged-creature appeared over Blair’s shoulder, its claws outstretched as it descended pitilessly on its prey. Powerless to stop it, time slowing to a terrible, inexorable crawl, James could not look away as it got bigger and nearer, its wingspan filling his entire peripheral vision, its mouth open, fangs dripping with saliva as it reached its target. Blair’s face twisted suddenly with shock and agony, a dreadful cry, strangled with exquisite pain, forcing its way out of his throat.

James came back to the here-and-now with a bump, Blair’s anguished voice still echoing in his ears. “What’s happening to me?” he gasped, gripping the arms of his chair for fear he would topple out of it. Other images were filling his mind; the pitiful, skeletal remains of men, women and children, murdered in their own houses as they slept. The great hall, filled with people and a tangible miasma of grief and fear. He and dozens of others standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the battlements, preparing to die defending humanity from the monsters. A cave in the far north, filled wall-to-wall with the dead bodies of the night terrors. “What have you done to me, witch?” he demanded in panic, lost in a sea of shifting experience.

“I’ve done nothing but open your eyes,” the woman said. “Which, if I’d only had the courage, I should have done a long time ago. May the gods of my ancestors forgive me for my cowardice.”

Memories continued to flood through James, holding him immobile with the force of it. It felt as though he was living months of life in the scant space of minutes, the false suppositions and inventions of his subconscious, inspired by the machinations of the night terrors, flushed away on the tide and dissolving into nothingness. Gradually the memories filled him, every corner of his mind awash once more with the true experiences of his life, the manufactured ones banished forever.

When at last it was over and his vision had returned to normal, James fixed his shocked gaze on Rowena, who was sitting serenely in the chair at the other side of the fire, looking as comfortable as if she belonged there. “It’s all true,” he said; knowing irrefutably, deep in his heart, that it was so. The implications of what that meant were so unbearable he found himself almost unable to face it. “Everything that Blair said – the night terrors, _everything_. It’s true.”

Rowena shrugged. “Of course it is. Those of us with eyes to see have known it all along.”

“Blair,” James whispered, pain rushing through him. He’d drugged his guide and locked him up in the custody of people who would sooner tend to a dead fae than a man wounded by the creature. He’d chained him in the dark, accused him of being a madman and a murderer, and threatened him with _muting_ if he so much as made a sound. James stood abruptly, his heart pounding with urgency and need. “I have to go to him!”

“Don’t be a fool, my lord!” Rowena snapped. “You go rushing in now to free him, proclaiming that you know the truth, and you’ll end up decried as a heretic too. Fat lot of good that’ll do him, when you get burned at the stake!”

It was an astonishing way for a commoner to speak to a baron, but James had to concede that she had a point, protocol be damned. If the barons objected to one of their number being paired with a heretic guide, the fact that he himself was also a heretic would not sit well at all.

Sitting slowly back down James tried, but failed, to get a grasp on it all. Everyone believed the lies that the fae – the _night terrors_ – had perpetuated. His trusted seneschal, his guardsmen, the town officials, the entire populace of the Five Baronies – _everyone_. James felt like he’d woken from one nightmare and fallen headfirst into another.

Beseechingly, he looked at the woman. “What should I do?” he begged.

“You’re asking _me_?” she said incredulously.

“Who else do I have?” The realisation of how very alone he was hit James hard. “There is only you, Blair and I that know the truth.”

“There are more than just us,” Rowena asserted, “but most of them have the sense to keep it to themselves. I warned Blair to be careful, but he didn’t listen. Like any young, idealistic fool, he thought he knew better.”

“Blair came to you about this?” James asked, astonished that his guide had confided in this woman.

Rowena grinned, without humour. “Who _else_ did he have?” she echoed.

Feeling totally adrift, James buried his face in his hands, rubbing them over his face tiredly before looking back at Rowena. Now that his true memories had returned, he remembered Blair saying that this hedge-guide had made him feel more than a little uncomfortable. James, for his part, found her thoroughly obnoxious and totally lacking in respect.

But she had given him back his sanity, and for that he owed her his life.

“Madam Rowena,” he said sincerely. “I will do anything I can to keep you safe – you have my word as baron, and as a sentinel.”

“I’m hearing ‘but’,” she said boldly.

James didn’t even try to deny it. “I need your help. There is no one else I can confide in.”

“Then take my advice,” she said, “Do not rush off to tell the world you know all about the night terrors. Catch up on sleep, take my herbal concoction when you need to, and avoid extending your senses until you are properly reunited with Blair. These are the things a simple hedge-guide like me has knowledge of.”

James snorted – he did not believe ‘simple’ to be an adequate description of this woman at all. “And after that?” he prompted.

“You’re the baron,” she said bluntly, “not me. Use the brains your ancestors gave you.”

***

Blair knew that he was dying.

Forbidden to speak - even to ask for help - lest he be relieved of his tongue, visited only once each day by silent, hostile jailers who avoided so much as a glance his way, Blair nursed his swollen, throbbing hand in painful silence. Apart from the cursory cleaning he had given his wounds himself, he’d received no treatment either for the bite or the scratches which had covered him. The latter had, for the most part, healed up themselves, but the bite was another matter altogether.

After James renounced their pairing and left, Blair had remained leaning in shocked grief against the wall, too devastated even to cry; unable to move even when the heavy links of his chain pooled noisily on the floor beside him. A while later the grey daylight, which had been filtering in through the high window, was extinguished forever; the sound of hammering heralding an eternity in darkness.

And darkness it was, apart from a brief time each morning when his jailors came in to see to his most basic needs, leaving the door open as they did so to enable them to see. The daily visit was short and perfunctory. Peter and Maeve did no more than take away his waste, replenish his water jug and bring a tray of food – simple, cold fare designed to last all day. No longer was a fire lit to warm the chamber, and all candles had been removed – Blair supposed that fire was regarded as too dangerous a weapon for a fae-killer to have access to. And at no point did they look at him where he crouched in misery, winched against the wall for the duration of their visits.

He’d noticed this morning, during the brief time that the door had been open, that bright tendrils of infection had begun to creep up from his obscenely bloated hand and up towards his wrist. He’d seen such a thing before – an infection so well-established that only amputation of the affected limb could save the person thus afflicted. He could feel the onset of fever already and knew that, once it set in, he would not last long.

Now it had come to this, Blair found that he welcomed the end willingly. The beckoning comfort of death called to him – a place where there would be no more pain, no more sorrow. Perhaps it would be like slipping into sleep, falling into peace and darkness for a senseless eternity. Or maybe, he mused, there truly was an afterlife, like in the tales told of the gods of his ancestors. A world bathed in the gentle warmth of sunlight, those who had gone before welcoming Blair amongst them with laughter and kindness.

Maybe his mother would be there waiting for him, holding out her arms to embrace him. Blair had been dreaming of her lately; longing for her. He didn’t know if she still lived or if she had long-since died. Was it selfish of him, he wondered, to imagine she’d be there in the afterlife to meet him? Because truly, he hoped that she really was alive and well, and had found whatever it was that she’d been eternally seeking. Blair smiled softly, fantasising about the life she might have led. Maybe she was married – though she had never, during Blair’s childhood, expressed an urge to settle down in any such way. Maybe she’d had other children, to replace the one taken from her. Maybe Blair had brothers and sisters, somewhere.

He wondered if they had the Sight, like him. And he fervently hoped they had the sense to keep it well-hidden.

It helped, Blair had found, to think about his imaginary siblings. To fill his thoughts with characters dredged up from his subconscious and given breath by his need. It was the only thing which came close to fending off the deeper pain which ambushed him at darker moments.

During the times that pain found purchase, twisting him this way and that like a multi-tailed whip with its fiery lashes of betrayal, grief, and despair, Blair blessed the fact that the end was near. Because the nauseating agony of his infected hand was but a tiny pinprick by comparison.

***

In one respect the old witch had been correct – a night of blessed, unbroken sleep was exactly the restorative that James had needed. Waking clear-eyed in the early morning, to senses well within the bounds of tolerance, gave rise to a clarity of purpose that, if handled badly, could result in his immediate censure as a heretic. Not even those close to him could be trusted, so James fully understood the need for extreme caution and careful deception.

His first priority was Blair. Fighting to subdue an almost crippling sense of remorse for what he’d done to his guide – for such an indulgence would solve nothing – James immediately began to make plans.

First of all he called a meeting with Simon. “Peter and Maeve have been through enough,” he told his seneschal. “I wish to grant them the retirement they deserve. I want you to arrange for them to take possession of the vacant smallholding on my uncle’s old land. While they wait for it to be made ready, they will be hosted here at the castle, and granted every comfort. I will travel to tell them today, and send them on their way. They should arrive here by this evening.”

“Who will guard Blair, my lord?” Simon asked, his brows furrowing.

“I have a replacement in mind,” James said. “Someone who will not only guard him, but attempt to rehabilitate him. He is, after all, ill.”

After that James met with Rowena, who he’d asked to return to the castle to speak with him this morning. True to her word she’d arrived at dawn, and was waiting for him in the great hall while he conversed with Simon.

They retired to his private apartment to ensure they would have privacy, and James told her his plan. “Blair must stay at the estate – it is not safe for him anywhere else. He will live in the house, and I wish you to stay there with him and see to his needs. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you will be his jailer and physician.”

She pursed her lips thoughtfully at the news. “I have one condition,” she said. “My family must go with me.”

James frowned. “Are they, like us, free of this madness?”

“I wish they were,” Rowena said. “My daughter, Gwen, is affected, as are her two oldest sons. But she trusts my judgement, and the effects have been mitigated by the fact that I drove out the night terrors that were roosting in our attic. Gwen has reclaimed some of her true memories, though she still feels more well-disposed towards the fae than I would like. The madness seems worse with their proximity, especially if they are great in number. If I can get her out of the town and away from the buildings where they gather, I think I can clear her head of the nonsense.”

James thought back, remembering with horror the plates of food he’d seen Maeve put out for the creatures, and the sound of countless tiny heartbeats in the barn and other outbuildings. “There is a whole flock of them at the estate,” he said. “Perhaps hundreds of them.”

“Leave them,” Rowena directed, “to me.”

Making his decision, James nodded. “Go back to your house,” he said. “Get your family ready, then come back here. Aim to travel light – I will ensure you are supplied with whatever you need once we arrive. We will ride out as soon as you are ready.”

***

Blair stirred uncomfortably. He was far too hot, even the cold stone against which he leaned not providing relief. He ached in every joint, the agonising throb in his hand and arm pounding a constant rhythm through his body. His mouth was dry, but he was too exhausted to move, even to find water to drink.

There were voices speaking, and a light moved beyond his closed eyelids - a candle-flame, he thought, brought close to his face. “He’s burning with fever,” one of the voices said. He recognised the speaker as Maeve. “I doubt he’ll last long, sick as he is. Perhaps we should send for the baron.”

“Best just to leave him be,” said another voice – Peter’s. “It’ll be a mercy if he dies, both for him and for the master. And it’d be easier on his lordship if he doesn’t see him like this.”

“You’re probably right.” Maeve sounded wistful. Then her voice hardened. “A life for a life. This is nothing more than his due.”

Tuning out the voices, which were filled with nothing but blind hatred for him, Blair sought solace from his pain and grief in the beckoning darkness; hoping that, this time, he’d be able to stay in it forever. He was only barely aware, after they left, of the fact that the chain remained taut.

***

Rowena and her family were ready surprisingly quickly. In deference to her age, James had prepared a carriage – a coach and six - which would be able to make the journey almost as quickly as his own favourite stallion. He planned to drive it there himself, tethering his own horse to the carriage so it would trot alongside the team; then later have Peter drive the carriage back to the castle, along with Maeve and their belongings.

To his surprise Rowena hauled herself into the driving seat with Gwen by her side, after ushering the little boys inside the cab and admonishing them, quite firmly, to sit still. “I didn’t always live in the town,” she told the baron as she took the reins in her wrinkled hands. “I’m from a travelling family, born and brought up in a wagon. I was driving teams like this almost before I could walk. It’s not a skill you forget.”

Gwen caught his doubtful look. “My mam knows what she’s doing, my lord,” she said. “I’ll be here to help her if she needs it.”

Rowena, it seemed, was full of surprises. James watched her closely for a while, riding alongside on his own horse and ready to step in if she found herself in difficulty. But it seemed she had not lied about her skill, despite her obvious exaggeration about how young she’d been when she’d learned it – it took a fully grown man or woman to properly handle a team of six. But it was certainly the case right now, even in her old age, that she retained the strength and skill to drive the horses as efficiently and confidently as any of his own groomsmen.

They made good time, reaching the estate in the early afternoon. James galloped ahead during the last few miles, to alert Maeve and Peter to the impending arrival of their replacements. Or at least that is the reason he gave – in actuality his desperate need to be closer to Blair made it impossible for him to wait any longer.

Schooling himself to calm as he rode into the yard, James took several deep breaths, reminding himself firmly not to give rise to any suspicion. He was worried enough already that Maeve and her husband might be reluctant to leave, or might question his decision to have them do so. The last thing he needed was to give any hint that he shared what they believed to be Blair’s delusions.

Peter came out to meet him as usual, a grim set to his mouth. James wasted no time on pleasantries. “I need to see the two of you now,” he said. “There has been a change of plan.” As he spoke he could see Blair’s prison out of the corner of his eye, and he firmly avoided looking at it. Now was not the time – he wanted these two gone from here before there could be any reunion with his guide.

A short while later, he sat with Maeve and Peter in the house. “I have employed new staff to take over your duties here,” he said. “In thanks for your service, I am making you a gift of a house and land for your retirement. I hope you will accept this as a token of my gratitude.”

To his surprise, Maeve burst into tears. “I’m so glad, my lord,” she sobbed. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

James caught Peter’s eye questioningly. The man, blunt as ever, explained. “This duty has been hard on my wife, my lord. I can’t say either of us will be sorry to see the back of this place. The death of the fae hit Maeve hard. We’ve neither of us been happy here since.”

Forcing himself not to react – it was emphatically not the fae he was concerned about – James said, “Can you be ready to leave soon? There is a carriage coming which you can use to travel to the castle. My seneschal, Simon, awaits you there, and will see to all your arrangements. The bulk of your belongings from here will be sent direct to your new home.”

“Give me half an hour, my lord,” Maeve said, sniffing and composing herself. “It won’t take longer than that to pack a few clothes, then we’ll be ready to go.”

Their discussion was disrupted, then, by the arrival of the carriage. Rowena and Gwen were cursorily shown around, the roundhouse prison carefully not alluded to at all. And true to her word Maeve emerged from the house less than thirty minutes later, with several bags at the ready. As she and Peter loaded them into the now vacated carriage, she eyed Gwen’s children, who were playing tag in the yard, disapprovingly. “This is not a suitable place for them,” she remarked to James. “Though I suppose soon it won’t matter.”

James gave her a hand up into the carriage, as Peter got into the driver’s seat and took the reins. James paused after closing the door, one hand resting on the window sill. “What do you mean?” he asked, the woman’s words filling him with sudden foreboding.

“The boy took a fever overnight,” Maeve told him, looking at him sorrowfully through the carriage window. “If he lasts another day I’ll be surprised.” She reached out and patted James’ hand. “I know you cared for him, my lord. And I’m sorry for that. But it will be better when he’s gone, you’ll see. You’ll be able to get a new guide – a fit guide – then.”

James stepped back as Maeve closed the window. A moment later Peter cracked the whip and the carriage trundled off, disappearing out of the yard in a cloud of dust.

The second it had gone, James turned and bolted towards the roundhouse.

Fumbling with the bunch of keys that Peter had relinquished to him a few moments ago, James unlocked the door of Blair’s prison and flung it open. The blackness of the interior was barely relieved by the winter sunlight, the place smelling, even to James’ unextended senses, of death. Terrified, he moved with leaden steps inside, praying for his eyes to quickly adjust to the gloom, and seeking the beloved figure within.

He found Blair lying on his side on the stone floor against the wall, unmoving. Questing fingers - almost afraid to touch - reached out to encircle Blair’s bare ankle, and discovered flesh that was far hotter than it should have been in the interior chill. To James’ immense relief, a pulse still beat there. His hand nudged up against the encircling manacle, and a killing rage filled him when he found the restraining chain still taut, keeping Blair from the comfort of the bed.

He heard a movement behind him, and knew without looking it was the old woman – he could hear her daughter outside admonishing her sons to go into the house. “Help him,” he gasped, the sick smell of infection informing him that Blair was deathly ill. James felt paralysed – he had done this to Blair. This was _his_ fault.

The woman crouched down beside him, and he heard her fumbling with something. Sparks flared – a tinder-box which she used to light a candle, produced from the bag she carried over her shoulder. The light illuminated the pitiful figure, Blair’s face obscured by the long, matted hair which had fallen forward to shroud it. Rowena moved the candle down, taking in the sight as it revealed the rise and fall of Blair’s chest, and when the light reached his hand – his poor hand – James felt as though he would be sick.

“Get a hold of yourself, man,” Rowena snapped, as James made as if to retch. She motioned towards the chain. “And get that thing off him.” As James obliged, mastering himself ruthlessly as he unlocked the manacle with trembling hands, Rowena reached out and stroked Blair’s hair gently. “There now, sweetheart,” she crooned softly, as though to a child – James had never guessed that this irascible old witch was capable of showing such compassion. “All will be well, now. You’ll see. You’ll see.”

After that Rowena left them for a moment, going to stand in the open doorway. “Gwen!” She called out to her daughter. “Find me a decent bed in the house as quick as you can, and plenty of clean linens. And get some water on to boil.”

Then she was back at James side. “Can you lift him?” she challenged.

James nodded. “Of course.”

“Then do it,” she told him. “Steady, now,” she said as his hand slipped underneath Blair’s bony shoulders, the other one under his knees. “This might hurt him, but you’ve got to do it. We need to get him indoors.”

Sure enough, Blair groaned painfully when his grotesquely swollen hand was jolted as James lurched to his feet; though the awful sound died away and he remained blessedly insensible thereafter. Blair weighed, it seemed, next to nothing – James had once had occasion to lift him before, after Blair’s collapse in the great hall, and back then he’d been a substantial burden to carry. It filled James with unimaginable remorse and grief to think that in his blindness he’d brought Blair to this terrible, depleted condition.

His steps guided by Rowena, who harried him urgently outside into the open air, James studied Blair as he carried him across the yard and into the house. His hair had fallen aside, revealing the gaunt, white face of a stranger. But for the sweat beading his skin and the pained breaths which puffed in and out of his open mouth, Blair would have looked like a day-old corpse.

Gwen had commandeered a bedroom on the ground floor – it was the one, James realised, recently vacated by Peter and Maeve, and therefore had been kept dusted and swept. Fresh linen had already been put on the bed, and James lay Blair onto it carefully, hating the way his guide’s head lolled floppily as he was lowered down.

As soon as Blair was settled, Rowena shooed James out of the way. “I need room to work,” she said, all her attention already on her charge. She looked up at James. “You’ll have to wait outside.”

“I won’t leave him,” James said stubbornly, planting his feet firmly on the spot. “I’m no stranger to the physician’s craft – I can help.”

“I’d far rather you stay out of my way,” Rowena snapped. “You might have treated a war wound or two, but this situation calls for finesse that an amateur like you can’t possibly understand.”

If anyone else had spoken to him in that way, James would have had them thrown out of his presence, and possibly whipped for good measure – it was only the fact that Blair’s life was in the balance which made him hold his tongue. And though James hated to admit it, Rowena had a point. She touted herself as an apothecary of long standing, while James’ experience had mostly been gained by watching others work on the battlefield, his power to diagnose and treat ailments coming mostly from his senses rather than medical learning. And right now, thanks to the herbs he’d imbibed, his senses were far from working at an optimum level.

Briefly he assessed the only other alternative - riding back to the castle to fetch Physician Wolf. The man might be thoroughly under the influence of the fae, but James knew him at the very least to be an exemplary surgeon. But the journey would inevitably take several hours, and James did not think Blair would survive that long without help. The fact was, right now, Rowena was all he had.

“Will he lose the hand?” James had to ask, obediently keeping well back from where she bustled around, and stepping out of Gwen’s way as she entered, carrying a pot of steaming water. Averting his eyes from the blackened, swollen flesh of Blair’s hand, James could not imagine any other outcome, apart from death - and that latter he refused to contemplate while Blair still breathed.

“It’s too early to say,” Rowena answered. “Put it over there, girl,” she motioned to Gwen, who hastened to set her burden on the nightstand. Then Rowena glanced back at James. “It’s possible, though I will do my best to save it.”

Time slowed to a crawl, James gradually gaining a reluctant respect for the old woman as he watched her work. Short-tempered and irascible though she was, he could not deny that she knew her craft.

A set of surgical knives were produced and taken away by Gwen to be purified by flame, and juice of the poppy and some other substance James could not identify were mixed with water and trickled between Blair’s lips, Rowena speaking softly to him all the while as she stroked his throat and encouraged him to swallow. The surgery that followed, as the foulness was released and drained from Blair’s hand 9the infection scraped away right down to the bone) was performed with a quiet, methodical subtlety James had never previously witnessed during all the times he’d seen battle-surgeons at work. Physician Wolf, James suspected, would have simply progressed straight to amputation, rather than wasting time on this neat delicacy.

Mercifully, Blair remained insensible throughout the whole thing, though James was worried by his pallor. Once the surgery was over the wound was bandaged lightly, though left unstitched to encourage the infection to continue to drain. With that done, Rowena looked across at James, her face lined with fatigue. “He must be given a draught – the same as I gave him earlier, though with less of the poppy - every four hours. If he continues to ingest it and keep it down, the spread of the infection should be halted. He’ll also need to take water, as much as he can tolerate. And in the meantime, he needs to be bathed and kept cool. Gwen will nurse him for awhile.”

“I’ll do it,” James said firmly.

But Rowena shook her head. “There is something else you and I must do first. There will be time for you to minister to your guide once it is done.” She moved to the door. “Gwen?” she called.

Gwen appeared in short order. “What is it, Mam?” she asked.

“Where are the boys?” Rowena asked.

“I gave them supper and sent them to bed,” Gwen said; and James was surprised to note that it was already dark outside. “They’re still awake, though I threatened them that Gran would be in to see them if they didn’t settle soon.” The words were uttered with wry humour; James had no doubt that Rowena could be a fearsome ogre, but her love for her grandchildren was clear.

“Hmph,” Rowena acknowledged. “Take over here then, will you, girl?” she asked. “His lordship and I have a duty to perform.”

At Rowena’s urging they lit some lamps and, splitting up, James and the old woman went through every room in the house, ensuring that the windows and external doors were tightly shuttered and barred. They met up again on the top floor, and Rowena indicated the trapdoor above their heads, which led to the attic. “Have a listen up there,” she said. “Tell me if there are any fae.”

A little afraid to extend his senses since they’d been giving him such trouble, James obliged nevertheless, trusting that Rowena would be able to provide him with something to alleviate the effects if he needed it. Casting his hearing upwards, he perused the attic, seeking in every corner, bringing his sense of smell into play also. “They’ve been there,” he concluded after a few moments, “but they’re gone now.” The flock had no doubt fled their coop as soon as the sun had gone down, flying off into the countryside to feed.

“Good,” Rowena said. She handed him a small jar, the lid sealed tight. “You need to go up there and spread the contents of this around. Make sure to suppress your senses of smell and taste as you do so. And avoid getting the stuff on your skin – if you do, come back down immediately and wash your hands.”

“What is it?” James asked, taking the jar from her.

“It’s powdered crystal, similar to the kind used to repel vermin,” she told him. “It comes from the mines in the east. I’ve found, in this concentrated form, that it deters the fae from roosting. It’s what I used to clear our attic in the town.”

Hooking open the trapdoor with the pole made for that purpose, James pulled down the ladder and ascended into the darkness under the roof. Taking extreme care, as directed, he thinly scattered the white powder everywhere he could reach. The skylight up here was open a little, and so he took a moment to close it. The beasts would need to find another method of entry if they came back and, hopefully, the stuff he’d spread around would dissuade them from attempting to do so.

Then, his urgent need no longer to be denied, he went down to return to the bedside of his guide.

***

The night proved to be a long and stressful one.

Blair had roused once or twice – a positive sign, Rowena assured James, despite the lack of recognition or sense in his eyes. He’d docilely taken the potion Rowena had given him without difficulty, and swallowed enough water that the sallowness of his skin – a sure sign of dehydration, according to the woman - had begun to recede.

At last as the night progressed, with one or the other of them taking turns to frequently bathe him with tepid water, Blair’s temperature had dropped to a safer level, and Rowena had finally declared him on the path to recovery, and the danger past. Fortifying him once more with poppy juice to dull the pain, she deftly stitched up his hand, which was considerably less swollen and no longer weeping pus.

Desperately wishing that matters were otherwise, James went to fetch his outdoor cloak. “It’s almost first light,” he said reluctantly to Rowena when he returned. “I must leave. I can’t afford to take any more time away from my baronial duties – spending too long here would look suspicious.”

Rowena was ensconced in the chair beside Blair’s bed, her fingers stroking gently through her patient’s hair. Blair slept, oblivious; his face a healthy colour once more and his breathing slow and steady. “I understand,” Rowena said, not looking at the baron. “Come back when it’s safe to do so – I will take good care of him in the meantime.”

“Thank you,” James said sincerely, “for all that you have done. I… I don’t know how I’d have coped if you hadn’t been here. I owe you for his life.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” Rowena said, though the words were without rancour. Her eyes, focused on Blair’s face, were oddly soft.

James felt the stirring of a puzzle. “What is he to you?” he asked wonderingly.

Rowena turned to smile at James, her face losing years of careworn labour as she did so. “Is it that obvious?” She shook her head. “Blair said you were a perceptive man. He was right.”

She turned back to look at Blair, her fingers maintaining their gentle movement across his scalp. “I had another daughter once,” she said, the words adopting the tone of a confession. “Older than Gwen by nearly a decade.” She laughed shortly. “Ah, but she was a rebel, that one. Wild as a bird and just as impossible to cage.”

“What happened to her?” James asked softly.

“Like a bird, she needed to return to the wild places,” Rowena said. “When she reached marriageable age, she declared her intent to go to live among the travelling people – _my_ people. Her father, town-bred as he was, didn’t approve – he’d tamed one wild gypsy woman, he didn’t want to deal with another. But she wouldn’t listen, even when he threatened, in the heat of his anger, to disown her. She ran away after that. We kept expecting her to return with her tail between her legs, but we never saw her again.” She sighed sadly. “My husband never forgave himself. He died with her name on his lips.”

James, perceptive as Blair apparently believed him to be, found it easy to work out the rest. “Blair’s her son,” he said. “Your grandson.”

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“Does he know?”

Rowena shook her head. “I only found out recently myself, after making a few discreet enquiries of my own. I was suspicious, of course, right from the start. The son of an unmarried traveller woman called Naomi, who went by my old clan-name ‘Sandburg’. The fact that he possesses the gift of Sight. And he has a look of her – in the way he smiles, sometimes, and the turn of his head. But by the time I knew for sure, the fae had twisted everyone’s minds – everyone except for Blair, my littlest grandson Fernie, and me. I thought it would be safer for Blair, in case my antipathy towards the fae became known, if no one knew we were related. And likewise, when the stories about Blair being a heretic started, I didn’t want the rest of my family harmed by association.” She looked at James. “Gwen and the boys have no idea, and I’ll thank you not to tell them. Not yet.”

“Will you tell _him_?” James asked, indicating Blair.

Rowena smiled sadly. “One day, perhaps,” she said. “When it’s safe.”

Moving over to the bed, James leaned down and kissed Blair softly on the forehead, then laid his hand over Rowena’s. “I’ll protect you – all of you – with my life,” he vowed. “For Blair’s family is also mine.”

He went after that; but not before he’d seen the tears in the old woman’s eyes.

***

Even though he’d woken to comfort and light, lying between clean, crisp sheets with sunlight filtering through glass and bathing the room with a soft, golden glow, the itchy discomfort of Blair’s hand and the uncomfortable pressure in his bladder informed him immediately that his hopes of a sunny afterlife had been dashed.

As he lay there, trying to find the strength to rise and hunt for something to relieve himself in, Blair tried hard to remember how he’d come here, wherever _here_ was. After a few moments he discovered bare flashes of memory. He’d heard James’ voice – “ _Will_ _he lose the hand?”_  he’d said. Blair glanced at his bandaged limb, elevated on pillows beside him. Clearly, by some miracle, he had not done so, yet had managed to survive all the same.

He remembered other, darker things – Peter and Maeve, determining to leave him, untended, to die. He supposed James had come along anyway, only to discover how close Blair was to death, and then insisted he be nursed back to health before his imprisonment could continue. Blair closed his eyes in despair. He’d truly rather die than be chained in the stinking darkness once again.

The thought of the unbearable future that awaited him gave Blair the impetus he needed to move. He pushed himself painfully upright, the soft bed trying desperately all the while to swallow him back down. Trembling with weakness that he ruthlessly tried to overcome, Blair slid out of bed and onto the floor on his knees, needing first of all to deal with a pressing matter of business. His questing fingers found, to his intense relief, the chamber pot he was searching for.

After that was dealt with, Blair feeling a hundred times lighter in the aftermath, he pushed himself to his feet. His legs trembled like those of a day-old calf as he stumbled, using the furniture for support, over to the window to look out.

His heart sank when he got there. Just as he had assumed, the dark spectre of his prison could be seen across the courtyard. He’d been brought into the main house to be tended, and his jailors no doubt had every intention of returning him to the unrelieved blackness of the roundhouse just as soon as they could be certain he would not die.

Hopelessness filled him at that prospect.

Blair looked away from the window and cast his eyes around the room. The furniture – the big, comfortable bed, a rocking chair, a dresser – was crafted from pine undressed in the country manner, the sunlight catching golden whorls in the oiled surfaces. Blair smiled sadly at the sight. For a man who had spent what felt like a lifetime in the dark, there was beauty even here, right on the edge of nightmare. Then his eyes alighted on something on the small, round table beside the chair, and he breathed more quickly. Surely they had not been so careless?

Making his way over, purpose lending his steps a surety entirely lacking a few moments ago, Blair sat down on the chair, almost afraid to touch. A knife lay there beside him; a small paring knife, of the kind used for fruit. Traces of peel were still upon it, so he guessed a watcher had sat here, absently eating an apple as they took vigil.

It was like an omen. Blair thought that if he’d truly believed in the gods of his ancestors or the bounty of the fae, he’d be giving thanks right now for this gift.

With shaking fingers, Blair reached out with his good hand and picked up the knife. This would be his deliverance from the blackness, he determined, and the living hell his life had become. The instrument by which he would excise the agony of being renounced by his sentinel, and treated like a felon for speaking nothing but the truth in a world where every other person was living a lie.

The trick, of course, was to do it before his jailers returned, because if they could save him from the infected bite, they could save him from this too. The cut would need to be swift and sure, and he’d have to manage it without sound, so as not to alert them to what was happening until it was too late. His hand shaking, Blair held the knife up to his throat – there was a big channel of blood there, he knew; one which, if severed, would drain him dry in minutes.

Yet even here, on the verge of salvation, Blair hesitated, heart pounding in dread, striving to find his courage. For a moment he allowed his longing and grief to blossom unchecked. _James_ , an inner voice cried, over and over; Blair wishing with all his heart for his sentinel to look at him once more with love. To feel that indefinable connection which had already been renounced between them, and would, in a few moments more, be extinguished forever. _James_.

But thoughts of James and hope destined to remain unfulfilled did not help bolster his resolve or calm his fear. So instead Blair focused again on the golden sunlight while he waited for his hand to firm up to its purpose, picking out the glinting hues of wood. Strange, he mused, how such a common thing held such beauty when light shone upon it. And he listened for a sound to take with him into eternity – birdsong, perhaps; though birds were noticeably fewer now since the fae had come. But what he found instead were the voices of children, laughing and playing outside his window.

That pulled him abruptly back from the knife’s-edge of his own destruction. Children? _Here_?

A second later Blair realised he’d left it too late, when his door opened. But to his astonishment, it was neither Peter nor Maeve who entered, but the old hedge-guide from the town.

Rowena came straight over to him, and wasted no time in prising the knife from his stiff fingers. “You’re safe now, child,” she told him earnestly. “Your man came to his senses, and brought me and my family here to take care of you. He knows the truth, now. He sees the night terrors for what they are.”

Unable to speak, his breath hitching in inexpressible, thoroughly unforeseen relief, Blair didn’t resist when the woman pulled him forward to comfort him at her breast, holding and soothing him every bit as tenderly as the mother he’d imagined in his most desperate dreams.

***

In the hours and days that followed, while Blair slowly recovered his health and vitality, he learned what had transpired to bring about his liberation.

As he lay in bed, listening to Rowena telling him the tale of how James’ true memories had returned, Blair couldn’t help asking the question which was inevitably raised. “If you knew that giving him those herbs would work, why did you not tell me that before, when I first came to you for advice?”

“I didn’t know for sure they _would_ work,” Rowena confessed. “They simply dull the senses. In the case of you or I, they would render us unconscious. For a sentinel, they simply bring overextended senses within the bounds experienced by other humans.”

“I would have taken the chance,” Blair said. “What would I have had to lose?”

The old woman sighed miserably, clearly annoyed with herself. “You’re his guide, Blair,” she said. “I thought I’d already given you what you would need when I told you to reel in his senses, and guide him towards his own gift of Sight – which is what I managed to achieve by using those herbs. What I had forgotten was that while you are a trained guide, Sight is not something you have much knowledge of or experience with. How could you know how to guide him to true vision, when you are a novice in that area yourself? Especially when you hardly seem to have any faith in the gift at all.”

“It’s not your fault,” Blair protested, remembering how frantic he’d been during that terrible period to find a way to convince James. “You also advised me to proceed with caution, yet I paid no heed to either matter. I thought that knowledge gleaned from books and other sources would be sufficient to sway him, so I delayed until I’d amassed the knowledge I thought I needed. I just never…” Blair faltered. “I never believed,” he went on, his voice hoarse with pain, “that James would do anything to hurt me. It never occurred to me that he would be having me watched, or be making plans to lock me away. I thought… I thought he trusted me. That he’d just _believe_ me, if I gave him enough evidence of the truth.”

Rowena reached out and patted his arm comfortingly. “The illusions woven by the fae,” she said, “are very powerful. I am certain he believed he was acting in your best interests, as well as those of the barony.”

But now Blair’s bitterness had found an outlet, it was not to be so easily stemmed. “He renounced me as his guide,” he said miserably. “All I did was defend myself from the fae, but he didn’t even listen. He left me in the dark to die. He threatened to have me _muted_ if I spoke so much as a word!”

“And knowing what he knows now, how do you think it makes him feel, that he did those things to you?” Rowena challenged. “You did not see his face when he found you near death. You didn’t see the tenderness in his hands when he sat up all night with you, bathing away your fever. And you didn’t see his grief when he was forced to leave you, to go back to lead a barony full of people who would kill him if they knew his secret, baron or no.”

Blair turned his face away. “I don’t… I don’t know how to deal with any of this,” he admitted, his voice thick with tears.

“Give it time,” Rowena said.  “I know it is hard, but you must try to find some forgiveness for him. If it is any consolation I believe, from what I’ve seen, that it will be a long time indeed before he forgives himself.”

***

Blair spent several days in his room, still too weary and sick at heart to venture out from its shelter. But gradually the lure of company and sunlight drew him into the open, although he stayed within the bounds of the estate itself. Remote though this place was, he did not want to chance anyone coming upon him in the open, thus putting all of them at risk of discovery by someone enamoured of the fae.

As for the beasts themselves, Rowena had made a concerted effort to drive them away, venturing out several times just after nightfall to scatter the foul-smelling crystals she’d brought with her anywhere they might roost. And as a precaution, given the attack that Blair had endured, the shutters of the house were closed tight every night.

Gwen, it seemed, since her mother had driven the remainder of the flock from the outbuildings on the estate, had completely recovered from the faes’ influence. She explained it to Blair, when he wondered aloud whether such a cure might be possible for others if the fae were to be driven off. “I don’t have the Sight,” she said. “But Mam says I do have a bit of guide-skill – not enough to ever become a real guide, like you, but enough that with Mam’s help I was able to shake off the illusion once I got away from the fae.” She shuddered. “Horrible, nasty creatures, they are. It makes me sick that I used to think they were the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.”

“So,” Blair asked, “are you saying that it’s only people like us – those with the Sight, or with sentinel and guide gifts – who are able to see the truth?”

“Well,” Gwen answered, “neither Jem nor Tomas have been totally cleared of their attraction to the fae, despite all our best efforts, even though they’ve got a little better now there are less fae around us. And they don’t have even a spark of a gift between them; take after their dad, they do, in that regard. Little Fernie, now, he’s got the Sight as good as Mam does, and he’s always seen things as they are, right from the start. I’d say, going by that, that it’s only the likes of us who can be completely cured while there are still fae in the world.”

That knowledge filled Blair with a sense of deep pessimism. Unless they could find a way to get rid of each and every one of the creatures, they would be destined to live out their lives like this – in hiding, knowing each moment that they might be taken as witches and murdered. In a world where a guide was not even safe from his own sentinel, what chance could they possibly have at the hands of others?

As Blair’s hand gradually healed, becoming fully functioning once again despite the impressive scar that marred it, he took every opportunity he could to spend time outdoors, hating the necessary confinement they all were forced to endure at night. As soon as he was able he took over some of the heavier tasks necessary for keeping their household running – chopping wood, hefting bags of vegetables from their outdoor larder, looking after the small herd of livestock they kept, and performing whatever maintenance and repairs were necessary before the hard frosts set in. But each time he crossed the yard he averted his eyes from the stone prison where he’d been held for so long, and he never once set foot inside it.

Once a week a cart visited the estate, bringing provisions from the nearby village. On those occasions Blair made himself scarce indoors, keeping well out of sight and leaving canny Rowena and her daughter to deal with the pleasantries. The locals had no idea of the supposed madman in their midst, knowing only that the current occupiers had been employed as caretakers to keep it running. It was imperative, for the safety of them all, that everyone in the vicinity continue to believe exactly that.

A month passed and then another; winter solstice now just around the corner. Blair found himself longing constantly for James to return. Yet he found that he dreaded it, too, and not just because there was so much left unsaid between them. What if the herbs had worn off, and the cure was only temporary? What if, now that James had returned to the castle with its stonework and stable-block full of nesting creatures, he’d forgotten the truth once more?

Blair fretted about the opposite scenario, too. How would James cope, alone amongst people who worshipped the fae? What if he could not maintain the deception? Blair knew, from bitter experience, _exactly_ how it felt to be sane in the midst of madness. And there was an even worse possibility than that – what if James’ heresy had been discovered? What if, even now, he was dead? How would they _know_?

Rowena, of course, had an answer for that. “You’re his guide,” she said. “ _You’d_ know.”

But that was cold comfort to Blair, considering all else that could have gone wrong and that none of them could possibly be aware of, short of venturing to the castle to find out.

There was an odd peace to be found, however, in their perilous, introverted existence. They were bound strongly together by the danger they were in and their common secret, Blair unexpectedly finding himself accepted into Rowena’s little family as though he belonged there. The children were a hyperactive joy, as unlike serious little Grace as anyone could be; their frequently naughty antics constantly lightened the dourness of Blair’s thoughts with amusement. It was hard, he had to admit, to remain depressed for long with them around.

Still, there was a growing sense of waiting, of expectation, amongst them all; and Blair turned his thoughts more and more frequently towards the road, hoping with all his heart to see a familiar visitor upon it soon.

Three days before winter solstice, the waiting came to an end.

***

The news of an approaching rider, who Jem had spotted while the boys played in the lane, mobilised them all. Blair retreated, as he usually did when the carter visited, to a room on the top floor, to conceal his presence for the duration.

Blair could hear little up here where he waited, heart pounding, hoping that it was simply a traveller innocently passing by their homestead, and not someone with a more ominous motive for seeking them out in this remote place. But deep in his heart he wished for the visitor to be someone else altogether – someone he both yearned and dreaded to see.

Blair did not have to wait for long to find out. He heard footsteps on the stairs, then Gwen knocked and entered, her face flushed with excitement. “It’s him, she said. “The baron – he’s come at last.”

Blair felt weak-kneed at the news. He took the hand Gwen held out to him and followed her out of the room.

Descending the stairs after Gwen, with her gripping his hand all the while as though she suspected he might bolt back up them, they reached the lower flight where, at last, he heard James’ voice in the kitchen. “It wasn’t safe to come sooner,” James was telling Rowena. He sounded, to Blair’s ears, weary and unhappy. “As it is, I can only stay for one night.”

James’ voice faltered as Blair reached the ground floor to stand, heart pounding, just outside the kitchen door. Contradictory emotions – dread, need and a deep, painful anger he’d never managed to rationalise away despite all his efforts - threatened to root him to the spot, but Gwen did not allow it. She tugged on his arm relentlessly, pulling him after her despite his reluctance. A moment later, Blair found himself inside the room.

The baron was sitting at the table, his boots – which Blair saw first, since his eyes were cast downwards – dusty from the road. Blair could feel the baron’s eyes upon him but dared not meet his gaze, afraid both of what he’d see and of how he might himself react.

Rowena spoke. “Come on, girl,” she said, and Blair was aware of her moving past to usher Gwen out of the door. “We’ve got work to do in the yard.” A moment later they were both gone, the door closed firmly after them.

Finally, after an eternity of silence, Blair raised his eyes to look into the face of his sentinel: the man he loved beyond life, who had doomed him to a living death.

***

Even without using his senses James could easily sense Blair’s anger and misery. The deep link that lay between them, once so vibrant and wondrous a thing, had long-since dwindled into dormancy. But the expression on Blair’s face as he at last raised his eyes to James’ - a face James had once known so well, before the lines of pain and grief that now aged and disfigured its beauty – spoke of unmistakeable torment. Betrayed by the man who professed to love him, cast into the silent darkness, committed into the hands of people who wanted him dead.

Worst of all, Blair’s despairing eyes spoke of his deepest anguish; renunciation by the sentinel he’d pledged his life to, who should, by right and custom, have placed his guide’s welfare and happiness above all things.

James felt stripped to the bone by Blair’s barbed gaze, and he accepted it all, denying nothing. Slowly he rose, Blair’s hurt, accusing eyes upon him all the while. And before he’d taken two steps towards Blair he sank to his knees, his head bowed in supplication. His own grief and remorse so immense he thought he’d die from it, James uttered the trite words which would never be enough to atone for his crime. _Nothing_ would ever be enough. “I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes downcast. “I do not deserve your forgiveness but…” his voice broke, “I beg for it nevertheless.”

James was aware of Blair moving nearer, and his hands clenched into fists at his side as he steeled himself for a blow. He would not defend himself if it came to that, for it was Blair’s right. And if Blair chose to flay him with words instead, then James would accept each and every syllable of blame, and gladly bare his back for more.

The hand which fell upon his head, stirring his hair gently and lovingly, was far worse than any beating.

Anguish consumed James. Ever since he’d recovered his wits, he’d wanted to die for what he’d done. To suffer as he’d made Blair suffer; to know the same despair, magnified a thousandfold, that he’d inflicted upon his guide,. For the past two months he’d buried his guilt deep down, locking it in the darkest depths of his own mind lest it escape and betray his secret to those who would condemn them all, if they but knew of its existence.

Yet now, the soft touch of Blair’s hand set it free, bringing it ravenous and raging to the surface. It boiled up from the depths, erupting in a strangled cry James was powerless to control, his body convulsing with pained gasps as it broke the bounds of its prison; yet he remained kneeling on the spot.

James’ felt his head cradled against Blair’s flat stomach; his guide’s hands, calloused from hard work and every bit as gentle and sure as those in his memory, alternately stroking over his head and shoulders and holding him close. He didn’t deserve such tenderness, James knew, as he fought to breathe through the terrible sobs that threatened to choke him. Yet Blair continued, relentlessly, to provide it. It was far, far more than James deserved but oh, how he hungered for it. And despite his unworthiness, the magic of Blair’s touch gradually infused him, the flood of pain easing and at last slowing to a trickle.

Then Blair knelt down too, his hands cupping James’ face and forcing him to make eye contact. “Link with me,” Blair commanded hoarsely, his own eyes full of tears, but with a fierce determination on his face which held nothing of cowed submissiveness. Blair was thoroughly unbroken, James acknowledged admiringly, despite everything that had been done to him. Rightfully angry, yes; and desperately hurt too. But so incredibly strong, so resilient, that James wanted to worship at his feet for the wonder of it.

Able to deny Blair _nothing_ , James retreated to that area of his mind from whence he could reach out to his guide. Stepping out into the void he moved decisively onward, his footfalls sure and confident, boards appearing magically beneath his feet to arc over the chasm. And at the apex of the bridge he and Blair met, their outstretched hands joining to complete the span.

At that moment they were one, their thoughts and memories exchanging in a rush of images and sensation. James felt Blair’s dread and fear at a world gone mad. He remembered, as though the memories were his, Blair’s rage and horror when he was unjustly confined, and his anguish at being chained in the relentless darkness, enduring day-after-day in a state of tedious, perpetual hopelessness. And he felt with wonder the decision Blair had made – never to run, and to make James see the truth or else die in captivity. _Where else would I go?_ He heard Blair say in his mind, when he questioned such unwavering loyalty. _You are my life, James._  

Their link went both ways, of course so, unbidden, James shared with Blair the horror and grief he’d felt back then in the midst of his own madness, when he’d believed Blair – his beloved, cherished Blair – not only to be insane, but also a danger to others. And James’ shock and bottomless remorse at what he’d done to Blair, which had consumed him ever since he’d come to his senses, flooded the space between them with its potency.

James felt, then, an echo of the impasse Blair had ultimately been brought to. A knife, sharp and glinting in the sunlight; the scent of apples heralding a dark path to be taken alone. And at last knowing the depth of despair he’d engendered in a man he loved beyond life, James wanted nothing more than to die himself.

 _No!_ Blair’s voice ordered in his head, forcing that image decisively away. _Look at this_.

James saw himself, kneeling at Blair’s feet, neck bared as if to an executioner. He felt love and sorrow so profound for the proud, devastated sentinel that it moved him to tears. He saw the innate goodness in the man; the desperate wish to atone for actions which had been inspired by an influence entirely outside his control. And he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that nothing the sentinel had done had been out of any desire to cause harm or distress, but had simply been a matter of striving to do the right and just thing both by his guide and his people, even at a time when his judgement had been so grossly impaired.

Back in the present James looked deep into Blair’s eyes, and found them full of the same fierce, protective love that he’d felt though their link. Blair still cupped his face in his hands, and James could not look away, not even when the words his guide spoke set him free.

“I forgive you,” Blair said.

This time when James wept, his tears were borne of gratitude and joy.

 

Thus ends _Part the Second - The Harrowing_. The tale of _The Night Terrors_ will conclude in _Part the Third - The Winnowing_.


End file.
